


of aspen crowns and catskin down

by mildlydiscouraging



Series: lilacs out of the dead land [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alchemy, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Detective Noir, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Ghost Hunters, Husbands, London, M/M, Murder Mystery, Orphans, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 18:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: The streets of London are slick and dark, and not just literally, although they are so often that too. Here there is not only murder, mystery, and mayhem, but magick as well. Here people go through their everyday tragedies and refuse to see the depths behind their troubles. Here two (and a half) detectives search for the truth.In the dusk of autumn, with wind slicing down alleys, the good people of London are disappearing. It's up to Kravitz and Taako and, honestly, mostly Angus to solve the case, and maybe a couple other mysteries along the way.





	of aspen crowns and catskin down

_What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be  
alive. Something dead that doesn't know it's dead._

Richard Siken, "Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede"

**▽△▽**

Somehow it isn't raining. The streets of London are full of people headed home, tucked into their cabs and cars, and the sidewalks are full of people headed home, coats wrapped tightly around them against the fall chill, and every one of them is dry, if cold.

Kravitz is one of those pedestrians and his fingers shake a little as he tries to unlock his front door. The floor is cold, Lucretia having closed the office hours ago, but there's warm air coming down the stairs at the end of the hall. With his coat over his arm Kravitz shuffles through the telegrams and phone messages in Lucretia's even hand. As he carefully avoids the creaky stair that always wakes up Mrs. Buchanan he can hear Taako humming. The mental picture of Taako, the layers that usually protect him from the outside world shed, a drink loosely in his hand as he wanders around the parlor dancing with himself in the orange-ish lamplight that just fills the room—Kravitz almost misses a stair.

With a nudge the door swings open and Kravitz steps into their flat. Taako is there just as he'd pictured, although his shawl is a different color and the radio is playing quietly in the corner, and when he turns Kravitz is glad he isn't trying to walk anymore because he'd be flat on his face this time.

"Darling."

Taako swoops in with all his characteristic exaggeration and dramatically kisses both of Kravitz's cheeks before Kravitz catches him and kisses him properly. He tastes like gin and cinnamon candy and Kravitz can't help but smile as the lingering outdoor cold melts away into the warmth of home.

"And good evening to you too," Taako says after he catches his breath. His carefully performed smile has reshaped into something much softer and special.

"Hm, it is now." Kravitz kisses him one last time before pulling away to hang up his coat. He deposits the messages onto the little table that holds their personal phone, littering it with shades of yellow and blue and pink and green.

Taako follows behind him, scooping up a few of the notes as they head into the kitchen. "Anybody desperately in need of a good exorcism?"

"Not really. The Society called for you again."

"Ugh, I hate those guys."

"I know, dear." Kravitz hums as he rifles through the cabinet. It looks as though Taako's eaten the last of the biscuits, again, so he settles for some of the scones leftover from tea yesterday. Day old scones are possibly Kravitz's absolute favorite food, which he assumes is the only reason why they've survived this long. When he turns around, Taako is sitting on the counter and watching his reaction. He smiles, dutiful and grateful.

"Nothing interesting at the club today," Taako continues. "You know, supernaturally speaking. There was this woman with the most incredible eyeshadow that changed color every time she blinked though. She gave me her cosmologist's card, I was thinking of checking them out later."

It's only when he finishes talking that Taako notices the tingly feeling in his hands is back. He shakes himself back into his body and snatches the last scone before Kravitz can, getting unimpressed narrowed eyes in return.

"Thank you for the help, darling," Kravitz says as Taako smiles under the crumbs. "I haven't read all the messages yet but there's a woman in one of the apartments on Exeter who's been calling nonstop all week, something about a skeleton in her closet?"

"Well we've all got those."

"I think she meant literally." Kravitz sifts through the notes Taako has spread out across the counter and finds the right one. "It rattles at her every time she opens the door?"

"Hm." Taako kicks his legs against the cabinets below in consideration before smacking his hands on the counter next to him. "That sounds fun, let's do that!"

Before Kravitz can say anything about the dinner they're supposed to be having with Davenport and Merle in a couple hours or the fact that the flat is all the way across the city or that Kravitz really did have actual work he was going to finish tonight, Taako is a whirlwind around the room and out the door. By the time he follows Taako has already hailed a cab and is holding the door open for him impatiently.

"You're really excited about this skeleton, huh?" Kravitz asks once they're both settled and the cab has taken off.

"I guess," Taako says. He shrugs his _I feel uncomfortable but I'm not sure why so I'll just pretend nothing is happening_ shrug and stares out the front window, effectively ending the conversation.

It's started to rain, tracing down the windows and cooling the air. Kravitz is suddenly glad he'd remembered to grab his coat and turns to Taako to say so when he notices the mood change.

"Are you alright?"

Taako hums and turns his head the slightest bit, but he doesn't actually look away from the window until Kravitz nudges him. "What?"

"You're awfully spacey today."

"I'm always spacey." Taako shrugs again, now saying _I don't think I'm supposed to feel this way and I don't want to talk about it_. "I'm flighty, ethereal, airy, all that shit. It's part of my brand, baby. I practically live in the stratosphere."

"Alright," Kravitz says. "I'm going to let that slide even though we both know it's not true," he continues over Taako's full body eye roll, "and just say that I'll be here when you come back to Earth."

There's a long moment where the only sound is the patter of rain and the splashing of passing cars as Taako turns back to the window. Kravitz tries to project some kind of reassurance or openness. This happens sometimes and he's not used callously accustomed to it so much as he is just aware of what to do and say from years of practice.

After a few more minutes of sopping stop-and-go traffic Taako's hand reaches out to fiddle with Kravitz's ring, and Kravitz knows he'll be fine.

"I just feel like shit, I guess. I don't know, it's this case, there's something about it."

"Impending revelation?" Taako gets premonitions fairly regularly, especially in their line of work.

"No..." He barely sounds almost nervous but it's just enough to clue his ever attentive husband in. "It's different. Less... directed, more generally ominous."

"Well, we'll be there soon." Kravitz turns over his hand and laces their fingers together. "And then we can do our song and dance and be back in time for dinner in Dorset."

Taako groans and slumps down against Kravitz's shoulder, restoring balance to their little mobile universe.

**▽△▽**

It starts five years ago when Kravitz goes to dinner. The hosts are friends of a friend who needs a plus one the same night Kravitz accidentally let slip that he had free, and Kravitz doesn't think it will be anything more than free food, a chance to break out his nice suit, and perhaps an interesting conversation or two. Maybe he can even lose a few business cards strategically around the drawing room. He isn't expecting his world to get turned on its side.

"Oh, that's him!" Evan, who had latched onto Kravitz the year before when he had buried his grandmother, now literally latches onto his elbow, pulling him across the room to where a clump of people surround someone.

Kravitz keeps a tight grip on glass of wine and lets him propel them forward. "Who's who?"

Thankfully the room is quite full and it takes them a long time to move even a foot. As Evan continues his push, he narrates, "I swear, if I hadn't met him I'd be livid, the only reason I came is because I heard he was supposed to be in attendance. Our hosts are sort of his parents but he's pretty reclusive, rarely deems these kinds of things worthy of his attentions I suppose, but he's amazing. The other day Jan was telling me how he read her palms at a party once and told her not to get a haircut the next day but she did it anyway and it turned out terrible, exactly like he'd said. You know, there's a rumor that he can actually communicate with ghosts, I'm just _dying_ to find out if it's true because—"

"Mr. Whitewater, what are you—?"

Evan practically mows down a dozen people in his quest to get to the front, and suddenly Kravitz sees him. In the middle of the crowd is a man wearing all white under a beautiful (if slightly unseasonable) dark fur coat, graceful and untouched by the eager faces surrounding him. With his turtleneck and simple adornment of jewelry, he looks coldly regal. He has a martini glass of something light pink in one hand that he lifts every so often in silent judgement as he surveys the crowd in front of him, barely looking up when Evan elbows their way to the front.

"Taako! It's me, Evan Whitewater? We met at the opening of that spirit photography collection at the gallery a month ago?"

Despite Evan's speeding introduction, Taako only continues to stare blankly at him. Kravitz finally forces himself forward enough to pry Evan's hand from his arm and Taako's gaze focuses on him like a pinpoint of concentration. Suddenly Kravitz is very glad he actually bothered to care about his appearance tonight as the man only breaks eye contact briefly to look him over.

Evan seems to notice this and quickly jumps on the opportunity. "This is my friend, Kravitz, he's a mortician, real big important one in the city. I thought maybe you two might have something in common seeing as you both work with dead people and all that."

Kravitz flinches at the blunt wording but Taako just smiles slowly.

"Charmed."

He smoothly shifts his glass so he can hold his hand out to Kravitz, and Kravitz, despite having been doing this social song and dance for years, stares at it dumbly for a moment before taking it. Taako's hand is cool from his drink and has the kind of grip that says he could crush bones but would prefer not to. Kravitz can't help but lean in slightly and Taako's eyes widen as he notices.

Instead of letting go, Taako uses his grasp to reel Kravitz in further. He smirks as he says, "Can't wait to see what you look like under all those fancy clothes."

Kravitz somehow manages to tamp down the nervousness and desire that well in his throat and says, "You sound fairly confident that's going to happen."

"I'm a psychic, darling." Taako leans in and Kravitz can't help but be mesmerized by the way even his eyes are shining. "I can see all sorts of things."

"Is that so? What else can you see?"

Taako puts two fingers to his temple, closing his eyes, and Kravitz takes a moment to study him up close. There is a gentle grace to his eclectic demeanor—the way his eyeliner sweeps just so, the sentimentally worn out earrings among his blindingly bright diamonds. He's beautiful in a real way underneath the projected air and it is spellbinding.

"Ghostlies, mostly," Taako says. "Lots of specters in your future, and not just metaphorical. A fair amount of parties, not so many friends, but you end up in this really fancy apartment with a black and white cat, so there's that."

When Taako opens his eyes again Kravitz tries not to look too startled or guilty, although judging by the smirk he gets he can assume he fails on both accounts.

"Oh, and we get hitched," Taako adds, grinning just that much wider, like he knows exactly how big a nail in the proverbial coffin it is.

Kravitz only chokes a little on his unfortunately timed sip of reassurance. "You seem fairly certain of that."

"Perks of being a fortune teller. I can make definite statements about the future. And I'm pretty perceptive of... other things."

"Like what?"

A dying summer breeze goes through the room and lifts Taako's hair so charmingly that Kravitz would swear he planned it somehow. Even only knowing him for a minute, he can tell how characteristic all the dramatic pauses are.

"Like how you still haven't let go of my hand," he says after an apparently satisfyingly long time.

Kravitz flushes and goes to do so but Taako's grip tightens in a not unpleasant way. He suddenly notices how close they are, and how alone they feel in a room full of people. He can't be concerned, though, too busy being mesmerized by the freckles that cover Taako's face and the way his ears twitch every so often at a distant loud laugh. For a moment Kravitz feels simultaneously adrift and stable, only things grounding him to reality the weight of Taako's grip in his one hand and the condensation on the glass still in his other. The quiet is alluringly peaceful.

"So," Taako says after another moment, "you wanna get out of here?"

"Absolutely."

"Great."

They swing out of the room, unseeing people shuffling around them like water, and slip through the billowing curtains of the floor length windows and out into the night. The rest, as they say, is history.

**▽△▽**

(Granted, they don't make it very far and end up necking against the cooling brick exterior of the house, lit only by the moonlight reflecting off the dewy lawn. They crush a few bunches of purple wisteria beneath them and get caught by the groundskeeper after only a few minutes, but it's an certainly auspicious start to their relationship and Kravitz for one isn't going to complain. He's just excited to find out what's under that turtleneck.)

**▽△▽**

"Cecilia Depson?" Kravitz asks when the door opens. "We're from the Preternatural Investigation Agency."

Before the woman on the other side can answer, Taako has already swept past them both and into the flat.

"Um..."

"Part of his process," Kravitz explains as Taako starts moving random things two inches to the left, pressing his ears to flat surfaces, and humming at random intervals. Most of it is just dramatics to keep up his eccentric persona, but some of it's actually useful. "Why don't you tell me more about what's been happening. You mentioned something about noise?"

"Yeah," Cecilia says as she leads Kravitz further into the apartment. He looks around at the knick knacks and furniture as she tells him, "There was some burned clothing in the washing machine, still damp, and there's been this humming noise that turns into thumping at night. It's awful, like this grating whine and then these huge deep thunks."

"Sure it wasn't just your music?" Taako says with a grin from the opposite side of the room, flipping through shelves of vinyl.

"Ignore him."

"This isn't even my flat," Cecilia tells Kravitz as Taako continues poking around. "It's my brother's, but he's been gone for weeks."

"Vacation?"

"That's what he said. I was watching his cat at mine, but when he didn't show up after the week was over I came round and he still wasn't back. That was a couple days ago."

"You didn't call the police?"

Cecilia shrugs and picks up the cat to stop it from clawing at the sofa. "He's like this, always running off after something. I wasn't worried til I went to get an umbrella this morning and that thing leaped out at me."

"Yes!" Taako claps his hands, drawing the attention back to himself where it ought to be. "Where is the spooky scary closet?"

When Cecilia points to the hallway Taako bolts.

"Oof, yeah, now I can feel it." Taako puts both his hands on the door and while Kravitz knows it's mostly for show, the concentration on his face is mesmerizing and a little hot, if he's being honest.

After a minute Taako turns back around. "Real powerful spook in there, that's for sure."

"Does it have something to do with what happened to Cy?" Cecilia hugs the cat closer. "Can you get rid of it?"

"Dunno and... dunno."

Kravitz holds out his arm nonchalantly to catch Taako's cape as it comes flying at him. As Taako starts knocking on random parts of the door, Kravitz asks, "Any other disturbances? Misplaced objects, messages on walls, anything like that?"

"Pretty sure anything like that is just the cat. It's mainly been the thumping, and it only just started getting really loud last night. That's why I called so many times today."

"We noticed." Taako is facing away from her with his ear pressed to the door so only Kravitz can see him roll his eyes. Kravitz barely restrains himself from making a face back, only jolting into awareness when Cecilia continues.

"My aunt says you're the best in the business," she says. "She met you at a party once where you just _eviscerated_ these light manifestation photos someone else was showing around."

"Marthe had it coming." Taako finally throws open the closet and there is a small rattling of bones from within. "Still the best excreter in the business though."

At Cecilia's confused and somewhat disgusted look Kravitz explains, "Ectoplasmic excretion, usually just some kind of fabric spit out from the mouth. Marthe Beraud, whose I assume was in your aunt's photos, invented it. It used to be a big trend in séances, but since Beraud was debunked it's fallen out of style."

"Marge Crandon, though? Does the coolest fucking thing with, like, sheep's lung," Taako adds, throwing an unsettling grin back at them. "It's awesome."

"Okay..."

Cecilia looks sufficiently grossed out and her expression only changes when Taako clicks on the light in the closet and she flinches at the skeleton at the back. Taako lets out a low whistle and Kravitz says nothing, only raising his camera slightly to take a photograph.

"Hey there, bone buddy," Taako says from the doorway. "What have you got for Taako today?"

The second he addresses it Kravitz feels a wave of something coming off the skeleton. In their years of paranormal investigation and even his former career as undertaker have exposed him to enough spirits and dark magic to make them commonplace, but even now there's something so fundamentally wrong about this situation that Kravitz is struggling not to shrink back.

Even while rifling through coats and jackets Taako notices Kravitz's discomfort and it brings his own to light. He's about to ask what's wrong when the skeleton tips forward right into his arms.

"Oh. Alrighty." He looks back over his shoulder at Kravitz. "Hey honey, could you give me a hand over here?"

Kravitz goes to help but gets distracted by something on the wall. Ignoring Taako's indignant protest, he steps past his husband and parts the few remaining jackets that had been bracketing the skeleton. A set of geometric shapes is uncovered, carved deep into the plaster, and around it sporadic and dark scorch marks.

"Ooh," Taako says from around the skeleton, "fun."

Pulling back his hand, Kravitz notices grime on his fingers. It smells like burnt hair and something rotten, and it matches the marks on the wall, but he hasn't touched them. Pausing briefly to take a photo of the sigils, he then takes one of the coats off the rack and flips it around. The wool that had been up against the wall is badly burned.

"Look at this."

Taako peers around the bones in his arms as Kravitz flips the rest of the jackets and coats he'd pushed aside, revealing the back of each just as scorched as the first. Now back where they had supposedly been before, the burnt parts of the coats filled in the gaps to create a starburst shape on the wall with a person shaped blank in the center.

"Oh shit..." Cecilia's voice is distant under the clatter of bones as Taako drops the skeleton.

Mindlessly Kravitz winds the camera up and takes another photo. At the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, he takes one more photo before stepping back to allow Taako to sidle past him.

"It starts in the center going right, and then up," Kravitz points out as Taako starts sniffing around the wall. "There's always more paint at the start. Oh, must you?"

Taako licks the finger he's run through the soot. "Hands on is the only way to go, babe." He smacks his lips. "Sulphur, soot, salt, and something else. Blood maybe?"

Kravitz grimaces even as Taako goes back to examining the wall and hangers.

"Middle headed right, huh? So banishing sun or fire... You know, depending on the school." When Kravitz raises an eyebrow, Taako rolls his eyes. "Pentagrams are usually elemental magick. Crowley's a big fan of shaking things up, though, and he designed this hexagram style, so who knows with these guys."

"So we're magick detectives now, are we? What happened to ghosts?"

Taako shrugs. "I dabble." He traces the lines thoughtfully and Kravitz only relaxes when he makes no move to eat more of it. "It's supposed to symbolize the Great Work," he continues. "The union of opposites, fire and water, earth and air, the macro and micro."

He blinks himself out of whatever stupor he's fallen into and waves a hand to dismiss Kravitz's concerned eyebrow furrow. "Or some shit like that. The scorch pattern is weird, though, I don't know what to make of it."

Tamping down the worry, Kravitz watches Taako flick the coats back and forth and tries for some a bit more lighthearted. "Lup would know, wouldn't she?"

"What?"

Taako says it not as though he didn't hear Kravitz but as though he doesn't understand the question and Kravitz blinks in his own confusion before saying, "I mean, from what you've told me of her. Fire was her thing, right?"

"Oh. Right." Taako shakes his head. "Yeah, it was."

"Are you alright?"

"Duh." He still looks a little out of it, but he quickly snaps back. "Hey, think we've killed enough time to skip out on dinner?"

Kravitz glances at his pocket watch and sighs. "Yes."

"Yes!"

Taako trades in his bag for his cape from Kravitz's arms and takes off back towards the front of the apartment. Kravitz holds out his bag for him by the door as he dashes around collecting all the little bits and pieces he's managed to have strewn across the room. It's a routine that they fall into it easily, as chaotic as it looks. Taako always did like the way it made people just a little afraid of them.

"So you'll find my brother?" Cecilia asks, lagging behind at a normal person's pace.

Taako scoffs and turns his cape over his shoulder as he sweeps out the door with Kravitz right behind him.

"Of course," Kravitz says, holding the door open just enough to smile back at her. "It's what we do best."

It's raining heavily when they get back to the office and Taako has helpfully produced a neatly folded newspaper from the depths of his bag to hold over their heads as Kravitz fumbles with the lock.

"Come on, come on, come on," Taako whines, shifting in place. "Paper isn't waterproof, babe, you know that."

"It's wet!" Kravitz fumbles with the slick keys.

"No shit!"

He finally gets the door open and is immediately pushed aside as Taako rushes into the dark of the office. Kravitz has to put a hand up to stop the door from hitting him in the face at the same time as he gets a mess of wet newspaper shoved at him.

"Seriously?" He asks, but Taako is already deep in the room, indistinctly narrating his own discomfort. Kravitz dumps the paper inside with a grimace and eventually gets a grip on the doorknob to swing it shut.

Once he's inside, Kravitz turns on the hall light. His hand is silvery, literally—wet and shiny from the rain, no doubt, but also distinctly metallic.

"Taako?" He calls up the stairs. "Were you painting the door?"

"No. Why?" Taako yells from upstairs. Kravitz takes off his shoes and joins him in the kitchen. "Ooh, what's that?"

"Don't—"

Taako licks his palm and then spits at the floor. "Ugh, mercury."

"Please stop putting things in your mouth to find out what they are," Kravitz says, deadpan but serious. Taako grins and steps even closer.

"But you like me putting things in my mouth." He kisses Kravitz once on the mouth before trailing across his cheek and down his neck slowly, and Kravitz tries to remain focused but it is incredibly difficult.

"This is not what we're doing right now."

"Isn't it, though?"

Taako gives him that look, the one that's carefully crafted to get Kravitz to stop thinking about literally anything other than getting him to a private enough place, and even with so much exposure to it Kravitz still gives in immediately. He lets Taako pull his wet coat off, even though he knows he's getting mercury paint all over the inside of one sleeve, and drop it on the floor, even though he knows it's wool and is going to get ruined if he doesn't dry it properly, and pull him back into the bedroom, and there are no arguments against that.

**▽△▽**

Taako flops over the arm of the sofa in his living room. It's a little over one year since that fateful soiree at the Highchurch estate and it's been a year full of coordinating outfits and dinner parties and shared cigarettes and the occasional haunting. Kravitz now knows the shade and pattern of every shawl in Taako's closet and Taako has been down to the mortuary more times than any living person other than Kravitz himself.

Most notably their dinner party tricks have turned into genuine ghost hunting on demand. Someone mentions at a lunch that they think their flat is genuinely haunted, Taako prescribes a modified ritual in some sort of home remedy, and it works so well that they start getting calls regularly asking for paranormal help.

(Taako grumbles about not being an agony aunt for ghosts, but Kravitz knows he's secretly pleased that everyone wants his attention and advice, and honestly they're right to—he's very good at it, in a way that is both entertaining and efficient.)

It wasn't until a few months ago that they'd had the joint brilliant idea to combine their predilections towards sneaking and the spiritual world to start their own paranormal detective agency, but it's already the most exciting thing in both their lives. The hardest part so far, it seems, is the name.

"What about Cloak and Dagger?" He muses aloud. "That's got a nice ring to it."

Kravitz spins around in the office chair in the corner. "Who's the cloak and who's the dagger?"

"You're cloak, obviously." Taako gestures at Kravitz's black-on-black look, his only concession to the dying heat being slightly shorter sleeves than usual. "And I've got some sick kitchen knives I could learn some tricks with."

"I'm not entirely sure putting you, knives, and demons in the same room as paying customers is the best idea."

"Ghoul Smashers Inc?" Taako offers. "Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Exorcists?"

"Come on, take this seriously."

They fall silent for a moment, Kravitz looking over his to do list and Taako kicking lazy circles in the air above himself.

"Pleasant."

"Hm?"

There's no indication that Taako has said anything other than the way his kicking gets more deliberate in precise circles rather than wandering ellipses. Kravitz can't see him properly from this angle, and when he sits up Taako shifts just enough to keep his face hidden. That's when Kravitz knows something is happening and instead waits for Taako to continue in whatever seemingly erratic way he will.

"You know how we're both orphans?" Taako says eventually. "And how somehow neither of us ever ended up having a last name?"

They're obviously hypothetical questions, but Kravitz hums in the affirmative anyway, and it quickly fumbles down into silence as he has time to think. For a moment the only sound is the _fwip_ of the ceiling fan and the distant commotion of the street below their open windows.

"Well, you've got the Highchurches," Kravitz manages to get out eventually. He tries to act nonchalant but he can tell already where this is going, why Taako is so uncharacteristically deliberate, and feels that same need for care circulate through his fingertips.

"Yeah? Taako Highchurch? No fucking way. Sounds like a country pastor or some shit." Taako scoffs and turns over so he is looking right at Kravitz. "And besides, there's no way I'm giving Merle the satisfaction."

"So who is Pleasant?"

"Detective from some books I read as a kid. Smart, orphan, kickass skeleton wizard, lots of witty one-liners—the ideal man."

"Sorry I couldn't live up to that." He tries to smirk, but it's tense and fragile.

Taako pretends not to see it as he scoffs and says, "Are you kidding me? You're perfect."

"Thank you," Kravitz says, soft and earnest. Taako makes no indication of having heard it but Kravitz knows the message is received.

As Taako rolls off the sofa and onto the floor, Kravitz catches a glimpse of his unguarded nervous expression. It feels wonderfully painful to witness—instinctive concern for Taako's comfort mingling with the excitement of what Kravitz is pretty sure is to come.

"There's only so many good names out there," Taako says finitely and with his patented faux nonchalance. "I thought maybe if we came up with one good one we could just... share."

When Taako doesn't continue, Kravitz levers himself out of his chair and carefully lies down on top of him. He feels more than hears Taako's small chuckle and leans down to carefully kiss the back of his head and neck.

"A name that's just our own," Kravitz mumbles into Taako's hair. When Taako doesn't respond he continues, "I like the sound of that."

"Mhm?"

"Mhm."

Taako tilts his head just enough to look over at Kravitz. This close everything is unfocused, but the blatant cautious optimism on Taako's face proves that they're on the same page again.

"Edgley?" He suggests once he turns back to the carpet again.

"Holden?"

Taako smiles. "Doyle."

"Arceneaux."

"Sosostris."

"Bathory."

"Soulbinder."

"Ghoulsmasher."

At that Taako laughs, sharp and unguarded. He rolls out from under Kravitz and manhandles Kravitz in between Taako and the sofa. Even now that they're properly facing each other Kravitz still can't help but touch him, running his hands through his hair, gently tracing his eyebrows with a thumb. Taako leans into the touch like he always does but his face is hard and his eyes are screwed shut.

"You alright?"

Taako nods and pulls him close, hands fisting in Kravitz's vest, and just stays there for a while. Kravitz doesn't argue. He's already written off his rumpled clothes as an unimportant lost cause and is content to wait until Taako is ready to talk.

"I love you so damn much," Taako says eventually in a rough whisper. He doesn't give Kravitz time to respond before dragging him in. The kiss is searing and all consuming, like staring directly into the sun if the sun were a beautiful man with a penchant for ridiculous hats and spiced tea.

Once Kravitz catches his breath he leans back enough to make half lidded eye contact with Taako and asks, not nearly as jokingly as he had hoped, "So is that a no on becoming Mr. and Mr. Ghoulsmasher?"

Taako's answering laugh is bright like a supernova and Kravitz can't help but kiss him again. Pressed up between the foot of the sofa and the armful of eager maybe-fiancé he's never felt so happy to be trapped. He's never felt so happy period.

"I'll get you a ring," Taako says between assaults. "Nothing too flashy, promise. I know that's not your thing."

Kravitz hums and kisses him for a very long time, long enough they've both almost forgotten what they were talking about and also how to breathe, before pulling back to say, "Meanwhile I assume you'll be expecting a fistful of diamonds?"

Wrapping his arms around Kravitz's neck, Taako leans in languorously. "Mm, you know me so well, babe."

Kravitz just holds Taako closer, ignoring the hard press of the awkward bottom edge of the sofa along his spine and the way the embrace is quickly becoming too warm. "Of course."

**▽△▽**

The first full day after getting a case is always Taako's least favorite part. Kravitz tolerates the beginning steps as means to an end, but Taako _hates_ it. He much prefers the high-stakes-trespassing, breaking-into-museums-in-the-dead-of-night part of detecting. The dramatic stuff—that's why he started doing this. Not interviewing shopkeepers for a hint of a suspicion of a clue.

But he goes through the motions anyway with tasks that are least likely to put him in the way of people he can't afford to piss off. Yesterday was unusually draining and he can't quite put up an act enough to either charm or interrogate, so he takes the leads that are places, not people. He spends his morning lurking around storefronts and delivery entrances, watching for any signs of someone he recognizes, and occasionally digging through trash (by which he means kicking over trash cans and poking through the contents with his toe). He finds nothing, though, and waits for Kravitz outside their favorite café with his legs crossed and anxiously bouncing.

He knows the moment Kravitz appears that they've hit nothing but dead ends. "Lemme guess," he says once his husband is in earshot, tipping down his sunglasses, "nothing in the crypt?"

"Nope." Kravitz sits heavily in the chair next to Taako and takes a sip of the coffee waiting for him. "No sign of any body matching the description of Cyrus Depson at Raven's or any other morticians' in a twenty mile radius. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Yard, but as far as Bronwen knows they have nothing either."

Taako scoffs. "Bronwen, huh? I swear, you seek out people with the weirdest names."

"I have no idea what you could possibly mean by that, _Taako_."

Rolling his eyes at Kravitz's smirk and elbowing him not so gently, Taako is about to fire back when a familiar high voice comes from above them.

"Hello sirs!"

"Oh for fuck's sake..."

"Hello Angus," Kravitz says, turning to the boy as Taako throws his hands in the air and continues muttering to himself.

Angus McDonald is there on the sidewalk in front of them in all his tiny detective glory. With his jaunty newsboy cap, bright shiny glasses, and neat suspenders, he's the picture of precociousness, and Taako has never been known as one to resist poking fun.

"You lose a tooth there, Agnes?"

"Just last week!" Angus smiles wide and sure enough there's a gap in his little pearly whites. "Upper right canine. Next to go are the molars, and then I get my wisdom teeth!"

Ignoring Kravitz's warning look, Taako leans his head on his elbow on the table and grins. "Bet you could use some of that, huh, kiddo?"

"Would you like to join us?" Kravitz asks at the same time.

Angus, magnanimously unperturbed, smiles as he takes a seat. "A good detective uses all their available resources! Are you two by any chance also looking for the missing Mr. Cyrus Rockseeker?"

Taako drops his antagonistic teasing front as he straightens. "Shit, his sister must've gotten married."

"How did we miss that?"

"Well at least that explains why we've found approximately fuckall so far."

Kravitz elbows him.

"What? Kid's heard it all before."

"That doesn't mean you should encourage it." Kravitz looks around for a waiter and waves one down. "We _are_ sort of his parents, after all. I think we're supposed to set a good example."

"I'm not changing my ways just because of some twerp. You know this is just who Taako is, right, Agnes?"

"Doesn't make it right. Cocoa, Angus?"

"Tea, please. And of course, sir." Once Kravitz relays the order to the waiter, Angus waves his little notepad. "Now back to the mystery at hand..."

"Arguing about pseudo-parenting tactics is so much more fun, though," Taako whines, but Kravitz and Angus are already comparing notes. Literally; they've both brought out their own little notebooks and are physically comparing notes. Taako has to roll his eyes at the charm of it all, this— _his_ picturesque tableau of found family. You know, ignoring the fact that they're on the search for a murderous warlock or whatever. Other than that, it's the kind of precious one would expect to see in the pages of some weekly magazine meant to sell ham or vacations or some other wholesome aspect of capitalism, not in real life.

Taako watches passersby as the other two go over their mismatched evidence. Despite the increasingly chilly weather there are still a few people out and about, especially in the park across the street, and he occupies himself with constructing elaborate backstories for them. The two people by the pond are recently reunited siblings torn apart by warring regal families, the man under the tree is waiting to intercept a spy from Bulgaria carrying information on their new intelligence network, and the figure on the bench feeding sparrows is an arsonist arcane mage and long term consort of the King's.

It's entertaining for some time, but eventually they all start to take the turn for the depressing. The arsonist got their power from a house fire that killed their family at a young age, the siblings are being torn apart again as one is forced to marry and move halfway across the world, the man is about find out the Bulgarian spy is a lover he mourned for decades, and Taako is...

"Sorry to interrupt the nerdathon," Taako says eventually, turning his eyes back to his husband and accidental son, "but I'm a man of action and I _gots_ to get going."

Ignoring Angus and Kravitz's matching eye rolling, he starts down the sidewalk. They follow him just as planned (after a pause for Kravitz to eye the waiter—the Avenal tab is well-respected around town as they have to run off regularly) although Taako keeps up his pace to stay in front.

Behind him Kravitz says exasperatedly, "If you really wanted to do something so badly, maybe you should've been listening to what Angus has to contribute."

"I was hired by another employee of Mr. Gundren Rockseeker, who is Cyrus's cousin and business partner," Angus begins. Taako looks desperately up and down the street for an available cab but unfortunately finds none. "They had a break-in two weeks ago, during which a few pieces of furniture were broken and forty thousand pounds were stolen from the safe. Around the same time Cyrus stopped coming into work—"

"Yeah, sis said he was on vacation." Taako waves at another cab to no avail. "Told her a couple weeks in advance."

"Huh." Angus pouts adorably down at his notes, flipping through the pages. "Mr. Gundren didn't say anything about a vacation. Or a sister."

"That’s some shifty shit, Ango." Finally a cab stops and Taako throws himself in the back, dragging Kravitz with him. "Well, you have fun with that. We've got places to go, people to see, ghostly folks to banish from this plane of existence. See ya!"

He leans over Kravitz and tries to close the door but Kravitz simply holds it open until Angus has clambered in alongside them.

"We were actually just about to head to Magnus's, if you'd like to join us," Kravitz offers over Taako's wordless noises of protest.

"That's very kind of you, Mr. Kravitz," Angus says, "but actually I think I'll go follow this new lead you've given me! If you could give me a lift back to the Rockseekers' offices, though, I would certainly appreciate it."

"Of course."

Taako just grumbles and crosses his arms, staring out the window as Angus and Kravitz continue to discuss the case. Snatches of conversation make their way to him, dates and names and "conspicuous acquaintances" filtered through fog, but he can't seem to tear himself away from that moment yesterday when the skeleton fell forward into his arms. It feels ridiculous and a little obscene to think, but it felt right somehow. Cosmically just. Like he was supposed to be holding whoever it was those bones belonged to.

It was jarring to say the least, the feeling of intention and design, like he was doing what he was meant to do, something he hadn't felt in relation to another person since Kravitz and, before him, well—

The cab pulls to a stop in front of an unassuming door in a building identical to the rest lining the street. Angus adjusts his cap and straightens his jacket as Kravitz leans over him to open the door. As he clambers out of the car Taako can see that the little patches at his elbows are coming loose and he makes a mental note to buy him a better coat to pass off as a hand-me-down early Candlenights gift or something. Maybe some gloves too, or a nice scarf. Something warm, something wool and plaid, orange and blue green that would go with his favorite brown newsboy cap. That could work...

"Alright, Dangus, get out of here. Go pester some other rich guys for your mysteries," Taako says, refusing to look at Angus.

"He doesn't mean that," Kravitz adds.

"Yes I do."

"Oh, I'm quite familiar with your brand of bullshit, sir!" Angus says as he hops up onto the sidewalk. "I know it just means you love me."

"It's a good thing he's so smart," Kravitz says to Taako as he slams the door in the kid's face.

Before either Kravitz can reprimand him or Angus can pout, Taako rolls down the window enough to shove a handful of crumpled bills at the kid. "Buy yourself some hard candy or whatever kids like nowadays and get out of my hair."

"Okay, bye, I love you!"

"We love you too, Angus." Kravitz waves as the cab starts to pull away. When Taako smacks him, he continues, "What? You know you do."

"What happened to not encouraging him?"

Kravitz rolls his eyes. "Encouraging him to swear is not at all the same thing as giving him the love and support you know he deserves."

Instead of trying to form a denial he knows will fall on deaf ears he changes topics. "It's your fault we ended up with a kid anyway."

"Oh, yes, I saw a bedraggled eight year old out in the pouring rain at night and was selfish enough to take him in. How terrible of me. Just because you were an orphan—"

"Just because _you_ were an orphan," Taako retorts. "Look at us, a family of ragtag Victorian street urchins glomping onto each other like a barge of unwanted babies. Foundlings raising foundlings."

"Is that not better than the alternative?"

For that Taako has nothing. Kravitz lets the moment linger just for the victory of it, then adds, "And besides, you enjoy having a mini-mannequin to dress up as you please."

"Not my fault the kid insists on being a nerd and therefore needs a makeover every two weeks," Taako snorts and relaxes back into the seat. "Alright. Magnus?"

"Magnus."

**▽△▽**

Hammer and Tongs is an inconspicuous but well-cared workshop down by the docks. Despite its less than savory surroundings, the little storefront is positively charming and full of cheerful people coming and going. It's very folksy, rustic, charming, and sweetly incongruous with the city around it. Simply put, it's kind of the opposite of Taako's whole philosophy of life, which is why Kravitz is so surprised when Taako makes them make a detour down there one afternoon on the way to their fourth or fifth date (depending on which one of them you ask).

"We have a reservation," Kravitz says as he is willingly pulled along down the street. "I thought you really wanted to try this place."

"It'll just take a second."

Weaving through the late morning crowd of fishmongers and tradesmen, Taako leads them to a side door in an alley. Kravitz doesn't have a chance to ask where they are before Taako opens the door and they step into a very cozy looking workshop. The air is full of the sawdust drifting up from every surface and the room is empty, but not for long.

"Taako!"

A big burly man appears around the corner in a rumpled vest and rolled up sleeves and immediately scoops Taako up into a hug.

"Mags, come on, be cool." Taako ineffectively smacks the man's shoulder until he's set back down.

"Oh shit, is this him?" There's immediate dawning recognition and Kravitz is shaking his hand before he even knows what's happening. "I'm Magnus Burnsides, you must be Kravitz, it's so good to meet you!"

Magnus is still enthusiastically shaking his hand even when Kravitz is too blindsided to reciprocate. "Uh..." He looks over to Taako for help but Magnus catches on first.

"He didn't tell you about me, did he?"

"I totally did!" Taako says, his hands raised defensively. Magnus glares at him, suspect, so Taako rolls his eyes and continues, "Krav, you remember that kid I told you about who punched himself in the face because he was petting a dog too enthusiastically? That was Magnus."

As Kravitz nods distantly, Magnus says, "Aw, really? _That's_ how he knows me?"

Taako raises a challenging eyebrow and looks straight at Magnus as he says, "He's also the one who tried to drink his own pee. And built a rowboat out of newspaper that sank immediately and almost drowned him." Damage done, he steps confidently through the tables and tools and out the door in the back into what is presumably the rest of the building.

"That was _all_ you?" Magnus nods. "How are you still alive?"

"I'm determined," Magnus says as they follow Taako. "And also people like helping me. I'm very friendly."

Behind the workshop is a kitchen where Taako steals an apple on his way through. They head up the small staircase and down the hall, Kravitz glancing in doorways trying to figure out what they're doing there.

Taako stops in the most impersonal bedroom. There's a neat bed with a quilt laid over the metal frame at the foot and a beautifully handcrafted dresser, but none of the other knickknacks that the other rooms have. At the back of the room, behind fluttering curtains, is a little square window overlooking the water, through which the sounds of gulls and dockworkers can be heard. It's all very nice, but Taako ignores everything else and goes straight for the closet, tossing coats and empty hangers onto the floor behind him.

"What is he looking for?"

Magnus shrugs back, just as confused.

Once Taako has thrown out what seems to be someone's entire winter wardrobe, he knocks across the wood panelling at the back of the closet.

"Anybody got a knife?" He asks. Magnus hands him one almost immediately and while Kravitz is busy wondering why anyone would so easily hand Taako _any_ kind of weapon, Taako jams the blade into the wall.

"Don't bust it!"

Taako rolls his eyes at Magnus as the panel pops off in his hands, revealing a deep hole in the wall. Inside is a roughly hewn shelf that's really just a wedged piece of wood and a variety of things; colored glass bottles, books, a shoebox.

Ignoring Magnus's comically shocked face, Taako takes out the box and one of the books and sets them on the dresser. When he opens the box Kravitz catches a glimpse of random old looking trinkets before he shuts it again.

"Seriously?" Magnus asks. "You've been hiding shit up here this whole time? How come I've never seen you come back for it before?"

"Usually wait 'til you're not home," Taako says. "It's a lot more fun that way."

"You break into my house just to look at your childhood keepsakes?"

Taako leans back against the dresser with his prize, a cigarette case, and shrugs at Magnus. When he puts a cigarette between his lips Kravitz reflexively steps forward with his lighter in hand, and he gets a warm look and a wink in return.

"How long have those—?" Taako valiantly tries to contain his cough but Magnus sees it anyway. "Yeah, okay, just making sure. So did you really come all this way for stale cigarettes?"

Ashing his cigarette out the open window, Taako watches the dockworkers below and doesn't answer. Magnus keeps staring at him pointedly, but he just watches the cloud roll by.

Kravitz has resolved himself to being the one to break the uncomfortable silence and is trying to think of how to do so when Taako says without turning around, "You said you wanted to meet him."

He stubs out his cigarette, barely begun, and drops it out the window. There's a brief affronted yelp from below that Taako ignores as he crosses his arms and turns back to the rest of the room.

"Well," he says. "You met him. You got any vodka in this place? Cabinet over the sink, gotcha."

Magnus steps back so Taako doesn't run him down on his way out the door, taking the box and book with him, and Kravitz is left filling awkward space.

"Was that, uh... Is he always like this?"

It fizzles into nothing and Kravitz squirms a little Magnus's considering look.

"He really likes you," Magnus says eventually. As Kravitz tries to work out what exactly that's supposed to mean, Magnus is already out the door and headed back downstairs. "Welcome to the family."

"Oh. Uh..."

Kravitz doesn't let himself think about it, only following Magnus downstairs on autopilot. He watches the two of them talk over their mismatched mugs, chiming in when the conversation necessitates it, which is fairly often as Magnus keeps trying to draw him in. They miss their lunch reservation, but it's fine—great, even. Kravitz comes away from the evening with half a dozen new stories of Taako's adolescence to tease him about at a later date and someone to call if he ever breaks basically anything in his house.

("I can fix pretty much anything if you just let me take it apart first," Magnus promises as he gives Kravitz his telephone number, Taako begrudgingly nodding along behind him where he can't see.)

Taako suggests that Kravitz come back to his for a nightcap with a salacious wink that Magnus steadfastly doesn't see, and they climb into the first available cab as Magnus waves them off with one hand, the other over his eyes. When they're settled in the backseat, Taako opens the shoebox and takes the cigarette case out again. He pops it open and takes out a faded train ticket stuck behind the remaining cigarettes.

"Had this tucked away since then," he says, tilting it to show Kravitz.

"The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month," Kravitz replies with a low whistle.

"A few hours off, but yeah." Shrugging, Taako tucks the ticket back in its place and takes out one of the cigarettes instead. He twirls it in his fingers as he continues, "Some old man gave me these. Said they were his last pack, but he didn't need to save them anymore now that everything was going to go back to normal."

Kravitz feels like there's something he's supposed to say now. Obviously this is a big thing for Taako—the cigarette case, the sharing over coffee, meeting the man who was basically Taako's brother, and he's been weirdly contemplative and stoic all afternoon—but Kravitz doesn't know how to respond without drawing attention to it. At the very least, he knows Taako would hate that, and any talk of emotion makes him close off immediately, and that's the last thing Kravitz wants, so he has to think this through carefully.

Taako snaps shut the case and tosses it back in the box. "I guess it's kinda stupid that I ended up saving them another half a decade, huh?"

Before Kravitz can wonder what he did wrong, though, Taako takes something else out of the box—a little wooden ball.

"This was from the bedpost when I first started hiding out at Hammer and Tongs. I broke it off and drilled a hole in it so I could hide things there. It drove Magnus crazy how I could always pull extra cash out of nowhere even when he thought he'd stolen it all to buy toffee with..."

Kravitz listens for a very long time as Taako keeps directing the cabbie to take another lap around the block. They miss dinner too.

**▽△▽**

"Maggie!" Taako slams the bell on the counter a few times. "We need your charm and people person sensibility!"

"Of course you do," Magnus says as he appears in the doorway. Holding a rag, his hands are stained a darker brown and he has a bit more grey in his hair than the last time Taako saw him. Ugh, aging.

"For two people whose careers revolve around human interaction," Magnus continues, "you guys are surprisingly bad at it. I mean, Taako's a dick, yeah, but Kravitz, you're just... _so_ awkward."

On another day Taako would absolutely be jumping on the Kravitz teasing train, but today he's restless, his attention span even shorter than usual, and skips to the point. "We need to know whatever you can find out about the Rockseeker cousins. One of them's gone missing and we're trying to figure out why."

Magnus lights up, just like he does any time anyone asks him for help. "Yeah, I can ask around! Me and Jules were gonna go to the Accalia show tonight but it got cancelled."

"The who what?" Taako raises a perfectly arched eyebrow.

"Accalia Skelton, the medium?" When neither of them show any sign of recognition, Magnus somehow perks up even more. "Oh man, she's so cool! A couple of Julia's friends went to one of her séances, apparently she's amazing. She lit Sloane's hat on fire and when it was all burnt up it turned into a note from her grandmother who died a decade ago congratulating her on her engagement that happened _last week_."

Magnus makes his eager _be surprised with me_ face, but gets no such response. Kravitz looks slightly more intrigued but not a lot, and Taako hasn't so much as blinked.

"So she's a magician..." Taako says dubiously.

"No, no, no." Magnus waves his hands enthusiastically but ineffectively at them before ducking behind the counter. "Look, she actually conjures ghosts and stuff. Hang on, Jules got these photos. She's been showing everyone, she was really excited for tonight."

Kravitz and Taako glance at each other with identical doubtful looks as Magnus continues narrating from under the counter. When he reemerges it is with what looks to be one of Julia's bags. He pulls out of it an envelope and hands one of the photos from it to Kravitz as he explains, "That's her. No one's ever seen her face, but she always wear the same intricately embroidered robe. It's her signature."

After considering it for a moment, Kravitz passes the photo over to Taako without comment. Taako, of course, scoffs immediately.

"What, this?"

Kravitz shrugs. "I don't know, I'm a little convinced. She could be the real deal."

"Come on, look at this, it's all blurry. I've seen way better fakes than this."

"Really?" Kravitz says, leaning over Taako's shoulder for another look. "I thought it was quite clear. In fact, my only reservation is that maybe it's _too_ clear."

"Are we looking at the same picture?"

"Are we not?"

Taako looks back at the photo in his hand. He sees the same thing he saw a moment ago: two figures in front of a dark curtain, one in a heavy robe leaning on an umbrella and standing behind a chair and one hovering over to their left. The standing one is far more corporeal looking but, they're both equally blurry. "I thought so?"

He can feel Kravitz's worried stare on him but refuses to acknowledge it. It's a worry for another time. He can't stop looking at the picture, though. It's like it has some kind of pull, like the reason behind why he's unable to really see it is a deeper mystery than their usual fare and it's begging to be solved. He can't help but stare at it just like he can feel Kravitz staring at him.

"Hey, do these Rock guys have something to with it?"

The two look up, Kravitz confused by the question and Taako confused by Magnus's entire existence. He... sort of forgot that Magnus was there.

"Do what with what?" Kravitz asks.

"Accalia. She went missing, that's why we're not seeing her tonight. Are you investigating her?"

"We didn't know who she was until five minutes ago, Mags," Taako points out as he pockets the photo. It's still not a good fake, but the fact that they're apparently seeing different versions of it is intriguing enough to warrant further investigation. Once this whole skeleton mess is finished he'll check it out.

"Oh, right." He looks a little disappointed for a moment before perking up again. "But maybe they _are_ connected! I mean, it can't be a coincidence that they're both disappeared."

"London's a big city, bud. It kinda can."

Magnus rolls his eyes before the little bell over the door rings and he smiles at the incoming customer. Taking that as their cue, Taako and Kravitz leave the store, waving back when Magnus gives them a grinning goodbye.

They have to go a few blocks to the main road for a cab, but instead of their usual banter the walk is filled with silence. Taako has lost his usual chattiness and his staring into the middle distance is empty. He keeps one hand in his bag fiddling with the edge of the photo tucked away there and almost walks into half a dozen people, Kravitz pulling him out of the way just in time.

"Are you alright?" He asks as he drags Taako out of the way of yet another harried mother and pram duo.

"Mhm."

Once they get to the main road Taako seems to relax at little. As Kravitz hails a cab and they get in the back he asks, "So what's next on the grand detecting agenda? Recon at the cemetery? Salt and sage run? Covert meeting under cover of darkness with the greatest minds in the psychical world?"

Kravitz leans forward to speak to the driver through the open divider. "Dorset next, please."

"Oh no." Taako's horror is palpable.

"Oh yes." Sliding the little window shut, Kravitz settles back to grin at Taako. "We have dinner plans."

**▽△▽**

Kravitz learns fairly early on in their relationship that the easiest way to get Taako to talk is two glasses of something strong. The second is to get him in bed and exhausted in whatever way is most feasible. Tonight, it seems like he might have to use both tactics.

He begins with phase one. Taako is reclining against his favorite mountain of pillows and listlessly watching the ceiling fan spin when Kravitz returns from the kitchen.

"Black Velvet, huh?" Taako holds out his hand to accept the glass Kravitz hands him. "Now I _know_ you're trying to get something out of me."

As he takes a sip he winks at Kravitz, who has stopped where he is in the middle of climbing up onto the bed. "Um."

"Relax, babe, it's fine." In one sip Taako drains his glass and sets it on the nightstand. "I've known the whole time, I just like having my own personal bartender."

"Well..." Kravitz settles back without really settling in. "I'm glad to have been of service."

He can't help but sink into the pillows a little just with the sheer amount of them, but he still can't stop the way his back goes ramrod straight at being caught out.

"I'm just saying, you don't have to get me drunk to get me to confide in you, but I appreciate the effort." Taako picks up his empty glass again just to clink it against Kravitz's. "So what'd you want to talk about this time?"

Sighing, Kravitz fiddles with the stem of his champagne glass. Unlike Taako he actually uses dishes other than martini glasses and giant mugs and makes a point of doing so whenever he was at Taako's as an example of how real adults act, they don't eat oatmeal out of a cocktail glass, come on.

This time, though, he didn't feel much like making any pointed glances and just says, "It's nothing."

Taako leans heavily into Kravitz's side, forcing him deeper into the pillow nest. "Aw come on, Kravdaver," he drawls, "whatcha wanna know?"

He starts pressing kisses to the bare skin above Kravitz's unbuttoned collar and for a moment Kravitz weighs his options. He could say nothing and let the evening continue in the incredibly favorable direction it is heading, or he could break the silence and ask the question he knows beyond reason Taako won't be happy with but will answer anyway. Mostly he just wishes he could stay in a moment that didn't require choice.

It isn't until Taako stops and silently leans his head against Kravitz's neck that the decision is made for him. In the ensuing awkward silence, Kravitz very carefully asks, "What was your childhood like?"

Taako pauses long enough for Kravitz to notice before he scoffs. "Shitty."

"That much I had gathered." Kravitz wraps his arm around Taako's shoulder and hugs him closer, trying to back out of the conversation he's walked into and into the earlier mood.

"Nuh uh, spooky stuff." Taako leans back for a moment to fix him with a look. "You brought it up. Commit to the bit."

"Alright..." After a conveniently timed fortifying sip of his drink, Kravitz continues, "It's just that I know we've talked before about how we both had not the greatest childhoods..."

"Orphan-hoods," Taako corrects.

Kravitz takes another sip as he nods. "That's fair. But I just realized at dinner with your fathers tonight—"

"Not my fathers," Taako chimes in again.

"At dinner with your fathers tonight," Kravitz continues over him, "I realized that as much as I care about you I... just know very little about you, I suppose."

"Yeah?"

Kravitz nods and hopes with everything in him that the silence is nothing more than thoughtful. It's hard to tell with Taako sometimes.

"Alright," he says eventually. "What do you want to know?"

"You have an accent."

"Mhm. Certified all-American, baby." Taako re-tucks himself into Kravitz's side, which conveniently has the added bonus of hiding his face. "Came over as a kid, right after that whole _Titanic_ mess when the post-tragedy lull left tickets mad cheap. Me and Lup conned a deckhand into basically paying _us_ to take those tickets off his hands, packed up everything we owned, and sailed on over that great big pond."

"Who's Lup?"

Taako takes a really deep breath, deep enough that Kravitz feels it like his own. "My sister."

"Oh. I, uh. I didn't know you have a sister."

"Twin, yeah, and had." The sheets rustle as Taako shifts uncomfortably. "I mean, I don't know, she might still be out there, but I haven't seen her in a decade or something? Since we got here."

Kravitz isn't entirely sure what to say. He runs through a hundred different things that still don't seem to fit. "I'm... so sorry."

It seems to be the right thing, though, because Taako sits up enough to look him in the eye. He gives him a slow smile that takes seemingly decades to cross his face before saying, "You know, what? I think you're the only person in the world who can say that and sound completely genuine."

When he leans up to kiss Kravitz again he now lingers, a spinning out and fizzing connection that goes straight to Kravitz's head. He's so caught up in the moment, in everything he can feel Taako pouring into the kiss, that he doesn't even notice Taako taking the empty glass from his fingers. It isn't until the next morning that he catches a glimpse of the mismatched silhouettes of their glasses on the nightstand and smiles.

**▽△▽**

Merle and Davenport Highchurch are not Taako's fathers. He is very adamant about that, even when they or anyone else tries to point out that well, actually, they kind of are. They didn't raise him—at best they were benefactors and sometimes advisors. At worst, they were his landlords from ages fourteen to twenty-one.

Tonight their role is as hosts. Monthly dinners have been a staple at the Highchurch estate since the war, when Davenport was only able to come home once a month at most. Since he had been promoted to admiralty they were somewhat obsolete, but Merle insisted they keep up the tradition once they took in Taako and decided he needed some stability in his life. (Taako was not consulted on this decision, and in fact would have violently disagreed, but they were right. It was nice.)

Kravitz, for what it's worth, loves it. Merle and Davenport (as they'd insisted he call them they first time they met personally) really are wonderful hosts, as odd as they are. Neither would strike one as the society type, but Davenport has a quiet kind of stability and Merle is the life of any party he came in contact with, and together they are unstoppable. They make every party feel like an intimate get together, even when there are so many guests they can't all be seated in the same room, as the situation happens to be from time to time. Their hostly rapport is legendary. They're amazing.

Case in point: When Taako and Kravitz had to excuse themselves from dinner the previous night (retroactively the next morning), Merle was immediately ready to extend the offer again for the next night. Flexible and stern at the same time, he wouldn't take no for an answer this time and made sure to wait until Taako was out of earshot to somewhat guilt Kravitz into promising they'd be there.

Which is why Kravitz waits until they're already in the car. Even though Taako threatens to jump out at every traffic light, it's kind of foolproof. The ride to Dorset is long enough that Taako's petulant stony silence can slowly thaw, and by the time they're pulling up to the main gate of the house he's even a little excited.

Ignoring the butler waiting in the doorway to take his coat, Taako sweeps into the front hall. He doesn't even glance around before he says in his most affectatious socialite voice, "Mr. Highchurch, how pleasant to see you."

Merle, of course, is already there waiting for them. He has his hands in his pockets, his tie loose around his neck, his sleeves rolled up, and he's smiling. He looks pleasantly impassive and exactly like the kindhearted man that takes in the orphan at the end of the story after everything awful has happened.

"The prodigal son." His voice is equally facetious, but there's a warm edge to his smirk that betrays his sincerity. "We're so honored."

Taako theatrically air-kisses Merle on both cheeks. He has to practically bend in half to do it, but he does, and somehow does so elegantly, as usual. "And the Lady of the house?"

"Favors the study nowadays." Merle leans in conspiratorially. "I think she's doing it just to annoy Dav."

Davenport's voice comes from down the hall. "She only knocks down _my_ atlases! She's definitely doing it to piss me off."

"I know she drives up the value of the estate, but if you wanna get rid of her once and for all, just say the word," Taako says. "We'll even give you the friends and family discount."

Merle smirks and even Kravitz is immediately wary. "So you're admitting that we're at least one of those?"

"Nope, that's it, I'm out." Taako turns to the door dramatically but is stopped by Kravitz's arm.

"The taxi's already gone," Kravitz says. Taako slumps into his side a little and rolls his eyes at him, but doesn't argue any further.

As they head down the hall Davenport joins them. His hair is in disarray and when he wipes his hands on his dark pants they leave trails of dust.

"Spring cleaning," he explains as he tries to fix his hair. The gel makes it a little resistant, but he manages to make do.

"It's November," Merle points out as they step into the dining room.

Davenport shrugs. "I'm still on Australia time."

Merle gives one solid push to Davenport's hair in the wrong direction and it sticks up again in one huge piece. This time Davenport can't fix it, try as he might (and he does try). Eventually Merle takes pity and pats it smooth for him as Taako snickers in the background.

They sit down for dinner, facing each other in pairs at one end of the table. Merle and Taako fight over who gets the chair on the end as a footstool with a real kind of ferocity and Taako only wins when Merle realizes that his legs aren't really long enough.

"So," Davenport says when they get to coffee. "Skeleton?"

Taako leans forward with a grin. "Skeleton indeed."

"I thought I'd heard it all. Satanic burglars, a possessed suit of armor, an army of ghost Prussians?" Merle checks them off on his fingers. "Sure. But a haunted skeleton that shoots fire out of itself? That's a new one."

"New _and_ true," Taako points out. "Missing persons and missing cash, ghosts and witchcraft, and it's not even Halloween anymore!"

"Like Candlenights come early," Merle contributes wisely, and as he takes a sip of his own drink he misses everyone's rolling eyes.

"It’s been pretty great so far," Taako continues, magnanimously pretending he didn’t hear Merle. "Haven’t had to sneak in anywhere yet, but the night’s still metaphorically young. Lots of leads to follow."

"To be honest, we're a little stumped," Kravitz says. Before he's finished Taako's heel is digging into his toes, but the damage is already done.

"Really?" As Merle leans forward, Kravitz can't help but notice the familiar resemblance Taako so vocally resents. The slightly feral tilt of the smile, the eyebrow quirk that says promises knowing and denies mercy. It's a look that Kravitz has had levelled at him many times, usually as prelude to running away from an angry someone, and here even Merle's usual fatherly calm can't temper it as he grins at Taako. "So you've come to your wise fathers for advice."

"I most certainly have not." Taako says it to Merle but he's glaring at Kravitz, who starts to prepare himself for a pointedly quiet ride home.

"No, it's understandable." Taako groans. "You look up to me and trust my judgement."

"I so do not!" But Merle keeps smiling. "Shut up, I'm a big boy, I can handle my mysteries by myself."

"Weren't you going to ask about—?"

"Not anymore!"

Davenport takes a deep breath. "Well Merle, to be fair, didn't you just direct someone to Taako when you didn't know the answer?"

Now it's Taako's turn to look delighted and Merle's turn to silently warn for a change of subject.

"Oh really..." Taako drawls. He takes a long, slow sip of his coffee, wholly cavalier despite having definitely burnt off a layer of taste buds.

Davenport nudges Merle and looks at him expectantly, but when it becomes clear Merle absolutely will not speak, he does for him.

"A man came by earlier this week looking for his missing wife," he says. "He had this ridiculous name, I can't remember what, and his wife did too. He thought she may have been here looking for her brother, god, what was her name?"

"Started with S or L or something," Merle says, "and I definitely would have helped if I had been here, but I wasn't."

"He was," Davenport says, deadpan. "He made up a business meeting because he didn't want to admit he couldn't help but still gave the man your card before he left."

Merle smacks his arm as Taako somehow grins impossibly wider. "Quit selling me out!"

"It's true." Davenport is completely nonchalant as he reaches for another biscuit, ignoring Merle's betrayed groan of dismay. "You told him you knew just the person to call, said your sons and grandson were the best in the business, and even wrote their personal number on the back because you felt so bad."

Throughout this explanation Taako's grin keeps getting wider and wider as he leans his chin in his hand, only faltering to make way for his requisite grimace at the insinuation that Angus is his son. Merle has been steadily sinking further down in his chair, to the point where he's barely visible, and Taako throws a piece of scone that lands right on top of his head.

"Hey," Taako says when Merle reemerges to glare at him, "if I ever need to get another job, can I put you down as a reference?"

Merle throws the piece back, and then Taako throws another piece of his scone, and then Merle throws an entire brownie, and then baked goods are flying across the table at high speeds. Kravitz and Davenport are sucked in only a little bit reluctantly, and the food fight expands to fill the dining room with laughing shouts and genuine yelling and so many crumbs. It's only when one of the butlers reappears that they realize what's happened.

"Uh, sir..." He holds up his tray with a phone on it. "It's the Chancellor of the Exchequer for you?"

Davenport, lying on the floor behind an overturned end table, points at himself. When the butler nods, he stands and says, "Right, of course."

They're all keeping it together pretty well, but when he reflexively brushes off his pants and unleashes an avalanche of crumbs Taako bursts into giggles, starting a chain reaction that takes them all down. Even the butler lets a chuckle escape

"Not a word," he says, pointing at them each until everyone is quiet. He clears his throat and picks up the phone. "Chancellor Churchill."

Taako can't help but lose it again. He's still laughing even as Kravitz bundles him into the cab home.

**▽△▽**

"Have you seen Angus today?"

Incongruously casual, Taako drops the question like one inquiring after a pet and not a nine year old child you accidentally adopted over a year ago.

Kravitz looks up sharply from his newspaper. "What?"

"Angus," Taako says again, still staring at the humming oven. "You know, boy detective, about yea high? Eats all our food, stole my second wardrobe?"

"You mean the guest room," Kravitz says, but he puts down his paper and gives Taako his full attention anyway. "Is this why you've been stress baking all afternoon? Because you're worried about Angus?"

The timer goes off and gives them a reprieve as Taako casts about for his oven mitts. The flat fills with the smell of cinnamon muffins, sharp and warm. They're Angus's favorite.

"You _are_ worried," Kravitz says.

Kicking the oven door shut behind him, Taako drops the tray with a clatter on the counter. He stares at them for a second, knowing without checking that they're done but still needing something to do. For a second he just stands there silently before pulling off his mitts and whirling back into action.

"I mean, I get that he's like one of those cats that comes and goes, and he's in the middle of a 'very important investigation' or whatever," he says as he dumps the dirty bowls in the sink, "but it's been a couple days, yeah?"

Now _that_ triggers an alarm. "It has?"

"I know, right? We're really not good at this whole parenting thing." Taako says it flippantly but Kravitz doesn't notice as realization dawns.

"He's been gone for days?" He asks distantly, and Taako hums affirmatively with a tight edge of anxiety—like the repetition is wearing away at him, getting underneath his skin even as he nonchalantly starts another batch of cookies or cakes or whatever it is that he doesn't see enough of around the kitchen already full of baked goods.

"Orphans, right?" Taako says with a weak smile. "We're a fickle breed."

"Taako, that's—" Without even realizing it Kravitz has stood up and is flitting around the living room collecting his coat and shoes and what have you. A glance out the window tells him it's raining and growing darker and the situation feels more and more familiar but he won't think about that. "We're responsible for him, we—"

"I know, alright?"

Taako slams the egg carton in his hands down on the counter and Kravitz stops completely.

"God, you think I don't know?" He whirls around to glare at Kravitz. "I can barely be responsible for myself, let alone an entire other living being. I never asked for this, any of this, I don't—"

If there's an end to that sentence Kravitz doesn't hear it. He's already out the door.

The streets of London are slick and identical in the twilight. Kravitz is the only one out who isn't rushing to get home under collars and umbrellas and stacks of newspaper and above that sheets of cold rain. It should be normal, but there's a heavy anxiety in Kravitz's chest that makes the shadows darker, the figures in doorways more ominous. He walks a little quicker.

On what feels like the hundredth right turn, Kravitz find him. He's just a small silhouette, and he could be any child, really, but Kravitz knows. He's under the awning of his favorite bookstore. Really, Kravitz should have checked there first, but it was out of the way, and to be honest he wasn't really thinking about it too deeply.

When Angus sees him he blanches. Kravitz takes half a step forward and Angus takes half a step back, out into the rain. Together they maintain that distance as Kravitz makes his way cautiously under the awning. They stare at each other from opposing ends of the dry rectangle, both unwilling to make the first move.

"Angus..."

Kravitz trails off when Angus glares wetly at him. The dozen possible ends to that sentence quickly fade under the rattle of raindrops on the awning. He puts his hand on Angus's wet shoulder and gets another glare, but it still isn't brutal enough to be a deterrent.

"Come home," Kravitz ends up with after careful deliberation, and even as a half question it's still the wrong answer.

"You're not my dad!" Angus yanks his arm back and almost stumbles into a puddle. Kravitz goes to pull him back under the awning but stops when Angus flinches.

"I know," Kravitz says placatingly. "I know that, I just... I'd like to be? If you'd let me."

"What?"

Angus looks so small out in the rain, again, and the memory of that first night comes back like a nameless stabbing at Kravitz's ribs.

"Or not!" Kravitz rushes to add. "I'm sorry, this just— This isn't the conversation I thought I'd be having right now." He takes a deep breath under Angus's cautious little glare. "I only want to make sure you're safe, _we_ only want to make sure you're safe."

Still squinting slightly, Angus steps forward under the awning. They're squished up against the last cart of books that hasn't been taken in yet, but at least they're both covered as Kravitz waits for Angus to make the first move.

Angus, of course, is very consciously keeping an eye on the books. He can't help the stray water dripping off his hat and the elbows of his coat, but he stands as far away from them as possible. It's his usual kind of conscientiousness, but it's still apparent that that's not all this is. It's stalling too. He's quiet for a long time and is still watching the books when he eventually says, "You said we."

"Well." Kravitz tries not to frown. "Yes?"

"It's just that..." Switching his gaze to the pavement, Angus takes a deep breath. "Sometimes I think Taako doesn't like me so much."

Oh. "He does! Of course he does."

"I haven't been back in almost a week," Angus says, turning his gaze up to give Kravitz a very familiar dubious look.

"He— He's bad at showing it sometimes, I know, but he does, Angus. I promise."

Angus still doesn't look convinced so Kravitz puts on his most sincere face. It's easy; he _is_ being sincere, after all.

"Okay," Angus concedes finally.

The walk home (and he only even _thinks_ the word tentatively) is quietly heavy. Angus turns away every time Kravitz tries to speak or offer him the umbrella, but when he wordlessly inches it out to cover both of them there's no argument. The distance seems half as long the second time, and not just because he knows the destination now, but at the same time it still isn't short enough. Kravitz is itching and anxious to get back inside. He can only imagine what Angus must be feeling, except for how he really can't at all.

Once inside they pause for a moment before wiping their shoes and stepping inside. Under the growing thunder of rain the creaking stairs are nothing and they quickly toe their shoes off on the landing (although Angus has a little difficulty with the soaked through leather) before Kravitz cautiously opens the door.

He keeps a careful eye on Angus to gauge his reaction. His coat is dripping on the hardwood floor, hair pasted to his forehead and glasses spotted. He looks... dreadful.

"Hey," Angus says weakly, pushing back his wet bangs, and Kravitz finally looks up to see Taako standing in the kitchen doorway with a new rack of cinnamon muffins, steam still curling off them.

"Dinner?"

**▽△▽**

After dinner they stumble in the door and go straight to bed with not even enough time for Taako's token-but-ultimately-useless-grumbling about wrinkles. Kravitz sleeps through the morning in a fit of self-indulgence that Taako wishes he could join in, but he can't. He's asleep for only a moment when he shakes from a dream of loud rain and someone holding out an umbrella he can't reach, and can't bring himself to test if the dream is only waiting for him to return.

Even now Kravitz and the rest of the world are fully awake, Taako can't stop thinking. He's disguising his erratic thoughts well enough, though, and even Kravitz can't tell.

"Lu says there was more of that mercury paint on the door when she got in this morning," Taako says casually from the sofa. He's stretched across the entire length of it, feet up on one end and an arm beneath his head on the other, looking like something straight out of a magazine. Kravitz can just picture him all stylized like that, selling shirt collars or something, and shakes his head before he gets too distracted.

"The silver stuff from the other day?" He asks, looking back down at his notes. There has to be something they're missing...

Taako hums. "Said it was deliberate, a sigil. Same hexagram as from the skeleton wall. I had to scrub it off, people were staring, but I took a couple pictures first."

"Really?" Now that's certainly interesting. Kravitz flips back to his own freshly printed photos that Lucretia had picked up for him this morning. There's not much more to be gleaned from them even with the knowledge that whoever did it must know they're onto them.

"While our boys on are on the case, someone is on theirs," Taako says in his best newscaster impression. Then, in his regular voice, "We should probably watch our backs, huh? Wouldn't want to be the next couple of heads on the list of London's long lost."

Before Kravitz can comment on Taako's morbid tone, Angus is bursting through the door. He's soaking wet and is wearing only his suit jacket, his coat draped protectively over his bag in front of him. He quickly hangs up the coats before sprinting across the room to the table where Kravitz is sitting, knocking his bag into an end table and leaving wet footprints on the hardwood.

"Hey!" Taako says, reaching out to steady the wobbling table and the swirled blue and magenta glass ball on it. "Watch out for Mrs. B! You know she gets cranky if you move her too fast."

"Sorry Mrs. Buchanan!" Angus says without a backward glance, "I just have some very important clues to share!"

He picks up his bag and dumps it onto the table. Taako sighs at the clattering and the puddles crossing the room both even as Angus mutters to himself.

"Well..." Taako stands and claps his hands. "Tea, anyone? In the meal sense."

Angus rifles through his pile haphazardly for a moment before he seems to notice where he is finally. He glances down at the puddle at his feet, then at the table, then at the kitchen where Taako has disappeared, then at Kravitz.

"There's dry clothes in your room," Kravitz says, gesturing towards the hall. Angus nods and takes off immediately, only pausing to toe off his shoes and set them neatly by the door.

Once the sound of his wet socked feet bounding up the stairs has faded away, Taako reappears. "Sandwiches sound good? I'd do soup, but we're having a heavy dinner tonight."

"Sure." Kravitz winds his arm around Taako's waist when he leans on the back of Kravitz's chair. "We should probably get him something hot to drink too, right? Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

Taako smiles and pokes Kravitz's cheek. "Sure it is, handsome."

"Sirs?"

They simultaneously look up and Kravitz grimaces at the same time as Taako bursts into giggles. Angus is standing in the doorway in what by all accounts should be a perfectly average (if unseasonable) outfit. Pristine and neatly pressed, he has on a jacket and matching shorts, perfectly reasonable aside from the fact that they're a lurid red-white-pink plaid pattern.

He even has on a matching little red hat and tie. And knee socks. And white and red oxfords. It's absolutely precious.

"You didn't have to put the whole thing on," Taako points out around laughs.

"You always tell me never to break up an ensemble," Angus says, crossing his arms.

"Damn straight, kiddo." Taako takes Angus's hat off for a second to ruffle his drying hair before telling him, "Your regular clothes are in the linen closet."

Angus runs off immediately and as soon as he's out of sight, Kravitz glares at Taako.

"Don't be mean," he says, but Taako just laughs.

"What are you always saying? This is just how I show affection?" Kravitz looks at him, exasperated, and Taako grins. "He looked pretty great, though, you have to admit."

Kravitz nods and Taako returns to the kitchen looking very pleased with himself. It's only a minute more before Angus returns in his more characteristic clothes. When he passes the kitchen door Taako throws a rag at his head, and Angus gladly cleans up the puddling footprints he'd made.

"Sorry about that," he says once he returns to the table. "I was just so excited to tell you all about what I found out!"

As Angus pulls open his nicer journal stuffed with all kinds of scraps and flips it open on the table, Kravitz catches sight of something that always makes his heart grow an extra size.

Glued to the page is a photo strip, cut in half so as to not peek out when closed, the eight little pictures neatly side by side. The first few are of Taako, posing immaculately, and Angus, caught off guard at first but then clearly delighted. About halfway through, where Angus is mid-word and Taako is a blur headed for the curtain, Kravitz appears.

He remembers the moment exactly; he had been wandering down the boardwalk wondering where the two had gone off to when he was suddenly grabbed and dragged into the booth. The pictures reflect it neatly in his confused face just appearing in the frame, then his awkward fumbling to fit on the bench. Only in the last two photos is he actually looking at the camera, and even then not really. One is a smile unaware of Taako making a goofy face mocking him just behind his shoulder, and the other is a slightly out of focus laugh as he caught Taako's reflection in the lense.

The best part, and the one that always brings up an aching fondness that he knows the other two share, is Angus, front and center, with a joy in his eyes in every photo but especially in the last one where his smile threatens to overtake all of his tiny face. Every time he sees that last photo it hits him again. There's just something so right about the three of them in that booth in that split second, each being completely their different selves while still fitting together like they weren't meant to ever be anywhere else.

When Kravitz looks up from his brief bout of reminiscing Angus is watching him. Neither of them says anything and after a moment Angus looks down to flip through his notes, but they're both smiling when he does so.

"After I finished making a list of everyone who sold a large enough quantity of sulphur in the last month, I went back to the Rockseeker office," Angus says, very carefully adjusting his glasses. "Gundren still wasn't there so I talked to his secretary again. She actually told me some pretty interesting details that it seems either Gundren forgot or left out. Apparently strange noises had been coming from the second floor for a long time and strange smells in the office. There had even been a few days where she arrived in the morning and the door was already unlocked, but no one was there. Miss Madison suggested that it may be an employee, but..."

"You think it's one of the Rockseekers," Kravitz finishes for him.

Angus nods. "Or both. We don't really know how Cyrus disappeared, or if he really did at all. For all we know he could still be around, helping orchestrate everything from just out of sight."

"Is he feeding you that philharmonic shit again?" Taako says from the kitchen. "Just because you wanted to be a conductor when you were little doesn't mean the kid has to too."

"Would you rather I say something about chefs in the kitchen?" Angus calls back.

Taako appears in the doorway to point his wooden spoon at Angus. "That's my boy."

"Anyway," Angus continues with a smile, "while I was on my way out the door I ran into this man who was also looking for a Mr. Rockseeker, although he didn't specify which one. I interviewed him to see if he knew anything pertinent to our case, and he's actually looking for someone missing too! His wife."

"I think we may have heard about him," Kravitz says, thinking back to last night. "Does he think his wife is at all connected to our case?"

"I don't know yet," Angus shrugs, "but it does seem awfully coincidental that more than one person connected to Mr. Rockseeker goes missing in the same week. I got his card so I could follow up, it's in here somewhere."

He goes back to flipping through his journal, passing perfectly formed notes and taped in photos of crime scenes past and present.

"Wait."

Kravitz puts out a hand to stop Angus's page turning. In the middle of his other notes and sketches from the office are a set of oddly familiar symbols.

"Oh!" Angus pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolds it. "These were painted onto the bottom of Mr. Rockseeker's desk. I noticed it during the tour and went back to take some samples while Miss Madison was answering the phone. I think it might be Indian yellow or maybe something sulphur based. It didn't smell but it might be old."

Nodding along, Kravitz pulls out his own notebook and flips back a few pages. His copied symbols are sharper and more geometric from being carved into the plaster of the closet wall, but they're the same shapes. Kravitz explains and Angus nods particularly wisely for an eleven year old.

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent," he quotes.

Taako's laugh echoes over to them. "Good ol' Artie. What a chump." He misses Angus's affronted pout as he continues whirling around the kitchen.

"Be nice," Kravitz says without looking up from the assorted photos and notes. "He does alright."

"Not my fault he gets sucked in by the most transparent shit. Like come on, he writes one of the smartest bastards in the world and then falls for some hack with _coloring book_. As if fairies are real."

"You of all people are going to disparage him for a moment of weakness towards the preternatural?"

"Fairies aren't real and he should know that," Taako continues over the clinking and hissing sounds of his coffee-and-hot-chocolate making routine. "Fell for that dumbass séance too, as if Selbit's ever been anything but a professional liar. He apparently can't pick out a fraud unless he's written them into creation himself."

"For what it's worth, though, he is very good at writing frauds. And at writing in general. I know for a fact there's been a few times you've drawn inspiration from him, for everything from our own investigations to the arrangement of our furniture and the way we present ourselves as a pair."

Taako grins as he walks over to the table with three mugs in his hands. "Oh you _know_ they were fucking, though."

"Of course." Accepting the mug Taako hands him, Kravitz takes a sip. Taako's special Irish coffee, with a hint of the dry edge of hazelnut under the thick cream. "So which one does that make you?"

"Well of course I'm the brilliant savant who dislikes talking to the rabble and always swoops in at the end to smoothly save the day. You're my steadfast and protective backup who's always lavishing me with praise."

"Thank you. I think?"

"Does that make me an Irregular?" Angus pipes up, but Taako ignores him as he goes back to get the sandwiches.

"Or maybe we're more like Bunny and Raffles," he muses. And then, under his breath, "No sidekick kids there."

At that Kravitz laughs. "You _would_ consider yourself a gentleman thief," he teases.

"Well I _am_ both a gentleman and a thief. Ta-da!" Taako sets down the plate of sandwiches on top of the scattered notes. "Tramezzini: basil, mozzarella, pancetta, and fig, prosciutto, mayo."

Kravitz picks up one of the sandwiches and stares at it, suspect. "Aren't these just tea sandwiches?"

"Don't." Kravitz raises a hand innocently as he eats his sandwich under Taa warning glare. Taako then waits for Angus to reach for one so he can pluck it from his grasp. Angus doesn't fight, instead wordlessly taking another, and Taako leans over his shoulder to pick up one of the photos.

"Same unicursal hexagram, huh? Crowley's version now, although the filled in pentagram instead of the dinky flower can't be a good sign. Usually supposed to be little flower to symbolize, like, the unity of the world or something. No idea why any self-respecting alchemist would drop it, although based on what we know about this guy it makes sense he'd be into some dark shit."

When Taako and Kravitz start looking at each other like _that_ , Angus slams his book shut.

"Well," he says. "I think that's my cue to leave."

"Oh, no, Angus—" Kravitz says, but Taako cuts him off.

"Atta boy, Agnes." He sits in Kravitz's lap and as embarrassed as Kravitz is, it still doesn't stop him from automatically holding Taako's waist to keep him steady.

"No, really, it's fine." Angus packs up all his notes and materials and stuffs them in his knapsack. As Kravitz continues to look embarrassed and Taako continues to smirk, he wraps up a few of the sandwiches in his handkerchief and stands. "I'll do some digging on the symbols and paint and get back to you later. Thank you for lunch!"

"Take an umbrella!" Taako calls as Angus reaches the door. "If you get pneumonia I'm not paying your hospital bills."

Stopping at the umbrella stand, Angus pulls out the small blue one tucked in the back and smiles. "Goodbye!"

The second the door closes behind him, Taako turns to face Kravitz with his practiced smile like cat that perpetually gets the cream.

"Taako..."

"Me." He sounds like he's reminding himself and it throws Kravitz for a bit of a loop.

"You," Kravitz agrees, and it's just enough of a statement to not require an answer, and Taako doesn't give one.

"You were right," he says instead as he runs a hand through Kravitz's hair. "It's a good thing he's such a smart kid."

Kravitz just groans and hides his face in Taako's shoulder. "You are the absolute worst, you know that, right? You're going to be the one to give him The Talk."

"He's not a baby, Krav," Taako says with a laugh. "It's not like it's anything he hasn't heard before—I mean, he hangs out with _us_ all the time. Besides, you really want that?"

After a moment of consideration (or perhaps, more accurately, dawning horror) Kravitz shakes his head vehemently. "No, no, that's much worse."

"Exactly."

"I _am_ worried about him running off on his own though," Kravitz continues, much to Taako's apparent displeasure. "I mean, I know he's very capable and can take care of himself, but this case in particular..."

"Stopping now."

"Okay."

Taako pulls a little on Kravitz's hair, just enough to tilt his head up so he can kiss him. As embarrassed as Kravitz still is, he can't help but lean into his warmth and kiss back. They've kissed hundreds of times but it never gets old and Kravitz soon finds himself lost in it, the familiar and unfamiliar. He can't help but muse a little every so often and here, kissing Taako at their kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, he succumbs to his poetic side. Besides, he's had a lot on his mind the past few days. It's nice to not think about anything else.

When Taako pulls away Kravitz lists forward until their foreheads knock together, unwilling to lose contact. Taako hum laughs affectionately and thumbs at the lapel of Kravitz's jacket. "You out there in daydream wasteland?"

Kravitz hides his face in the crook of Taako's neck and says nothing. Taako pushes the jacket off his shoulders and Kravitz closes his eyes as he says, "I adore you."

"Of course you do." Taako leans back just enough to start undoing the buttons on Kravitz's vest.

"I really do," Kravitz insists. He leans forward again, kissing along Taako's neck and trapping his hands between them. "I love you, I cherish you, I—"

Taako takes Kravitz's face in his hands, forcing him to make eye contact over the small space between them. "I know. I.." He laughs a little and shakes his head. "I adore you too. I love you."

The words and the uncharacteristically soft way Taako says them go to Kravitz's head like a bullet. No matter how much he knows it, there's always a distinct sincerity to the way Taako tells him he loves him that makes it feel like the words were invented just for this use. Where Taako has described Kravitz's frequent declarations of love to be everything from ardent to obnoxious, Taako himself is simply just... honest.

It's a little intense to have that kind of love directed at you in a plain spoken truth and Kravitz still can't help but look away. When he does, though, he catches sight of the papers still on the table, and that heady breathless feeling is washed away by a grey veneer of fog that sucks his heart down to the ground like a whirlpool.

Taako nudges his head back up. He doesn't say anything, simply raising an eyebrow, but Kravitz knows what he means.

"Something very bad is happening here, isn't it?" Kravitz asks.

"Something very something," Taako replies, "that's for sure."

Hours later, after everyone has eaten and relaxed and gone to bed, the doorbell buzzes. Angus has been down for the count for hours, and even Kravitz has succumbed to sleep, guided to bed by Taako after he was found slumped over his notes, so Taako reluctantly pulls himself out of sleep. Slippers and a robe are found along the way, his hair tied up as he navigates the dark stairs. The front office is filling with orange-grey stripes of light sneaking through the shut blinds and on his way through he passes a clock in enough light to read and contains a yell.

"Whomever the fuck is banging around here at three in the morning better get ready to duke it out," Taako says as he approaches the door, but when he opens it there's no one there.

A glance up and down the street confirms this, and Taako finds himself tracing what silver he hadn't been able to scrub off as he does. The road is eerily silent and desolate, and the world has a hazy glow that makes the smog fog more foreboding than mysterious. It's a dark kind of empty—baleful.

He's in the middle of closing the door, ready to write it off as some marauding asshole, when the knock comes again. Taako swings it open immediately and there's a quick clatter.

There lying across the threshold is an umbrella. Or at least, Taako thinks there is. He sees one, but he may still be asleep, and he has to be, because it makes no sense.

When he leans down to pick it up, however, it's solid. Taako hefts the weight of it in his hands, a sweet dark red plastic that feels dangerous with the orange light, and the resin in the carved wood handle glints when he turns it. It feels heavy and light at the same time, full of something other than physical matter. It looks ever so slightly familiar.

The street is still empty when Taako closes the door and locks it. On his way back to bed he slides the new umbrella in with the others in the sitting room. It rattles ever so briefly, but he's already asleep again.

**▽△▽**

"So what you're saying..." Taako leans back to kick his feet up on his desk. His brand new office chair squeaks under him. When he doesn't continue, Kravitz kicks the back wheel of his chair.

"What you're saying," he starts over calmly, "is that your job is to be wrong."

The man with the camera in his lap shifts uncomfortably. "Well, no."

"We investigate the so-called supernatural and those using such manifestations as an excuse to extort innocent people," the woman in the middle chair says. Of the three of them, she seems the most calm and put together (although she does seem a little unnerved every time Taako is not so much as fazed by any accusation).

"Which is why you're here," Kravitz finishes for her.

"To be wrong," Taako adds, and Kravitz kicks his chair hard enough to send him upright again.

"As I said on the phone," she continues, "we're interested in your firm for this reason, especially with your meteoric rise in the past few months. We find it a little... suspect, to say the least, and we've been given reason to believe there may be more to this than meets the eye."

"Does this really work?" Taako squints as he twists his chair back and forth. "Insulting someone and then trying to get them to cooperate with you?"

Kravitz sighs and tries not to sag back into the wall. "Threatening to curse a waiter's dick because you thought there should be more saffron in your soup is not the same thing as being skeptical of someone else's unproven beliefs," he says as though by rote.

"Oh," Taako looks back over his shoulder, completely unimpressed, "so now you're siding with them?"

"No," Kravitz replies, equally unimpressed, "I'm saying I'd rather you didn't get us banned from one of the few restaurants you will consistently 'deign' to eat at."

The mousy secretary giggles at Kravitz's air quotes but quickly stops at glares from both Taako and their boss. Kravitz gives them a small but appreciative smile over Taako's head.

"We'd like to observe your process," the woman continues. "Perhaps we could accompany you on your next case?"

"Listen," Taako sits up and folds his hands on the desk in front of him, "Doctor Macabre..."

"McCabe."

"Yeah, that. If you want a ghost, we'll get you a ghost."

She raises an eyebrow over her austere glasses. "You sure can try."

When it seems like Taako and Dr. McCabe's staring contest isn't liable to end anytime soon, Kravitz heads for the door, saying, "If you'll follow me?"

All five of them clamber into cabs, Taako expertly maneuvering them so the investigators are spread across both cabs and have to pay both fares. Traffic is light this time of day, despite the darkening clouds, and they pull up to the decrepit looking hotel in no time.

"What are we doing here?" McCabe asks as her assistant pauses to take a photo of the edifice, but Taako is far ahead.

There's a man dozing at the counter in the lobby and he perks up when he sees them. "Back for another go?"

"Of course," Taako says as he walks past without stopping.

Handing Kravitz a key, the man says, "I'm starting to think he just likes looking at himself."

"You wouldn't be the first to do so."

The man laughs and they all traipse past to the elevator where Taako is impatiently tapping his foot. Now that he can't run away, McCabe repeats her question as they pile in.

Taako sighs as he cranks the door shut, but she has him trapped. "You wanted a ghost, so we're getting you a ghost. Going up."

They spill out onto the sixth floor, which is just like every other they've caught a glimpse of through broken doors, albeit a little more abandoned looking. A thin whistle of cold air fills the hallway they've stepped into and they all pull their coats a little tighter around themselves.

Kravitz goes to unlock the only door with a knob not covered in dust and holds it open. Trailing behind the line of skeptics, Taako pauses to kiss him on the cheek and wink. "Showtime, baby."

Inside are the usual, although marginally unfashionable, contents of a hotel room. There is a sofa, a few armchairs, a table, all covered in white sheets. On the walls are the usual unobtrusive paintings and a tall mirror with a spiderweb of cracks and a missing piece in one corner. The rug in the center of the room is a little dusty with clear footprints across it and the balcony outside the huge windows is covered in fallen leaves.

The three debunkers stand in the middle of the room snapping photos and scribbling notes. They're so distracted by all the new information that they don't notice Kravitz opening the closet by the door or Taako circling the room.

"So!" At Taako's clap all three startle exactly as planned, and he smiles like the cat that got the canary. "Welcome to suite six thirteen."

He holds out his hand for the box Kravitz fetched from the closet and blinks out a pleased little smile when he returns the cheek kiss.

"In the spring of 1902, Terrence and Mary Thorpe were a young couple on their way to a new life," Kravitz narrates as Taako whips the cloth off the table and sets the wooden box down in the middle of the darker stain spread across it. "They were two weeks away from starting over in Brooklyn when Mary opened a trunk looking for stockings and got four years worth of illicit love letters."

"She followed the trail to this very room," Taako picks up the story. He opens the box and takes out the missing piece of the mirror. "She, her husband, and his lover were all dead within the hour." He dips his head rakishly and lifts the silvery shard as if toasting the three.

"What, are you saying the room is haunted?"

Taako shrugs. "The mirror, to be specific, but yeah."

The three look increasing degrees of dubious in order of rank, with McCabe thoroughly unimpressed, the cameraman taking photographs like it's his job, and the secretary looking on the verge of being swayed. Honestly, it's more than Kravitz would've thought.

"So what's next then?" McCabe asks without looking up from her notes. "Dry ice and water in one corner, flash powder, the works?"

The only sign that Taako even hears her is the slight twitch in his right eye, but it's a telling one that he's about to snap and Kravitz instinctively takes half a step away from the mirror. It only takes a moment for Taako to cross the room and fit the piece back in the mirror, and then everything explodes.

McCabe and her associates stagger as the room is filled with wind. The white sheets are thrown off every surface to cover the walls like living drapes and a cold purple light glances off them eerily. A dark grey figure comes gliding out of the spiderwebs of the mirror, smoother than was ever humanly possible.

Every other piece of glass in the room is vibrating, from McCabe's glasses to the lense in the camera, but the mirror and figure now in the middle of the room are both completely still. The flash of the camera goes off and the figure turns, its eyes alight.

"Um..."

Whatever McCabe is about to say disappears as the camera shatters. The man drops it immediately and it clatters on the hardwood, audible even with all the whooshing.

"Mary, dear, we have company," Taako says at only a slightly higher decibel than usual. "Folks, meet the inimitable Mary Thorpe. Duck, babe."

The ghost of Mary Thorpe flairs in response, her hair and skirt flying out behind her, and the entire room flashes. Kravitz is already ducking before the vase hits the wall behind him, although the secretary still flinches for him.

Taako raises an articulate eyebrow. "Any questions?"

They're gone before Taako can say anything more, quickly filing back out the door Kravitz is helpfully holding open and Mary Thorpe equally helpfully blows shut behind them.

"What time is it?" Taako asks, his casualness completely incongruent with the sound of the vase smashing into the wall behind his head.

Kravitz checks his pocket watch before grinning over at him. "Early enough that we can still make our reservation."

By the time Kravitz opens his arms Taako is already on him, kissing him long and deep. They stand there for a moment completely intertwined with and absorbed in each other as the ghost of Mary Thorpe rolls her spectral eyes and floats away through the wall unnoticed.

Pulling back for air, Kravitz laughs breathily and bumps their foreheads together when Taako tries to follow him. Maybe it's just him, but the room is much warmer now than when they first walked in. It's almost too easy to forget that it's haunted.

"Best anniversary ever," Taako grins, and as he leans even further into his husband's space, Kravitz can't help but agree.

**▽△▽**

As much fun as it is to sneak into places and run around the city crashing bad guys, sometimes it's nice to just sit quietly. Or at least, that's what Angus thinks. He tries to set aside a least one morning a week to take a break from the more active detecting. He still likes to keep busy (a good detective is always thinking) so he's doing the crossword in the newspaper spread out across the coffee table with a giant stack of buttered toast on a plate balanced on his knees.

"Well, I'll tell them," Lucretia says into the phone from her desk. Angus can hear Magnus's huge voice even from across the room. "Yes, of course, Magnus. I'll remind them. The magician, right. Okay. You too." She hangs up the telephone. "God, he’s a chatterbox."

Lucretia is very good company for mornings like this—she never feels the need to fill the silence but doesn't mind so much when Angus wants to talk something through. Plus, she always has her pen on a chain when Angus is unprepared for any out of the blue bolts of clarity.

Of course, that silence wouldn't be so golden if it weren't brief and fleeting.

"I swear I was in the middle of something, I just can't remember what. It's so weird."

"Right, because that's so unlike you."

"Shut up."

Taako swirls in the front door, Kravitz close behind him. Although Taako's is much louder, they're both equally excited, and their combined energy fills the room. Angus can't help the way he automatically sits up a little straighter, leans forward a little further, opens his eyes a little wider. It's an occupational hazard of being in a room with so many focused and passionate people.

Missing all of this, Taako tosses his hat neatly onto the rack and tosses himself onto the loveseat across the room from Angus. He's wearing his dark green coat. He must mean business. "What's the news, Lucy-loo?"

"You're late," Lucretia says with a succinct glance at him over her glasses, "and you have a missed call from Cecilia Depson, something about a disappearing skeleton?"

"Aw, Luce, you know you love me." As she rolls her eyes he sits up fully and points. "And you love a good mystery. Disappearing skeleton? You're too curious to really be mad. And face it: you can't be mad at this face."

He pouts and then flips off Kravitz when he laughs.

"No more calls from that strange static number either," Lucretia adds offhandedly, but Angus perks up immediately.

"Static number?"

"Oh," Kravitz says, "we've been getting those here too? I thought it was just something wrong with the connection upstairs."

"Static," Angus repeats thoughtfully, and then he throws himself from the armchair, carefully but quickly setting the remainder of his toast tower on the coffee table before running upstairs. He returns a second later with his trusty journal and is flipping through it when he reaches the office again.

Kravitz hangs up his coat. "Epiphany?"

After a moment of intent scanning, Angus nods and snaps the book shut. "We have to call Barry Bluejeans."

He marches out the door, tugging on his jacket from the rack and straightening his cap. The three adults watch him leave without a word, although Taako does mouth "Barry Bluejeans?" to Kravitz, who shrugs.

As the door is swinging shut, Lucretia asks, "Should someone go with him?"

With a sigh, Kravitz picks up his coat again. He doesn't bother to argue.

**▽△▽**

Part of the reason Taako was so desperate to get them a secretary was because he really just wanted to judge people.

"I'm very good at it," he'd said.

"That's because you're so judgmental," Kravitz had pointed out, but he agreed it would be a good idea, so out went Taako's carefully crafted ad. Two weeks later here they were, sitting through a line of the finest graduates of the finest secretarial schools.

After the fifth kid to mention _Jane Eyre_ finally leaves Taako slumps over the desk and groans. "This isn't as fun as I thought it would be."

"Of course it isn't," Kravitz says. "It's still a job."

As Taako yells into his arms, Kravitz flips to a clean sheet of paper. He won't say anything but he's tired as well. Everyone they've interviewed so far has been either obsessed with ghost stories or very obviously skeptical to the degree where Kravitz has started to factor in how much it would cost to put new locks on all the doors in case someone comes back after getting turned away.

He does sigh eventually, though, and lean back in his chair. "Why can't anyone just want to work here to work?"

"That's our allure, babe." Taako stubs out another cigarette. His collection is quite impressive by now. "People wanna work here because they wanna fuck a ghost."

"Or prove they don't exist."

"Who knows, maybe they'll go for both." Taako is about to settle back into his chair when the doorbell buzzes again and he groans in frustration. "When will the nightmare end!"

Kravitz leans forward enough to peer through the front room and window. A woman is calmly glancing in and doesn't notice Kravitz watching, but when Taako tries to look around him and almost falls over the desk she looks up.

"Great." Kravitz stands. "Well, I suppose we're doing this now."

Taako follows him as if nothing happened, smoothing out the shoulders of Kravitz's jacket from behind as they pause in front of the door. When he swings it open they both put back on their smiles.

"Miss Lucretia...?" Kravitz glances down at his schedule.

"Please, just Lucretia," the woman says as she shakes Kravitz's hand, then Taako's that he extends over Kravitz's shoulder. Her white gloves are pristine aside from a few faded ink stains around her fingertips. Taako is instantly intrigued enough to actually pay attention.

Lucretia passes the interview with flying colors. She doesn't give a shit about ghosts, but has experience dealing with cursed objects and is unafraid of getting her hands spooky, so to speak. She's austere and wry, able to stop Taako's hazing in its tracks with only an eyebrow. Her references are impeccable, her ambidexterity impressive, and when asked about why she left her last job she spins a tale about an automaton mechanic and a bookkeeper dismantling a corrupt repair shop that was a front for the mafia that leaves them both dizzy. In short, she's absolutely perfect.

"She's absolutely perfect," Kravitz says, pulling Taako aside just as Lucretia steps back into the waiting room.

Taako sighs. "I know. I hate it."

"You just don't like that hiring her means there will be someone around who can actually say no to you." They're both very aware that Lucretia is making herself busy and trying to pretend not to hear them, but Kravitz doesn't feel too bad about it.

"But I wanted one of those old ladies with all the silk who tell your fortune," Taako tries. "Someone to sit out front and tell everyone about the handsome strangers in their future and warn them to stay away from water."

"No such person exists." Taako rolls his eyes as Kravitz continues simply, "She's _perfect_ and we have to hire her."

"I don't know..."

"We won't have to interview any more people," Kravitz tries to wheedle, to great success.

Taako straightens immediately and steps into the front room. "Welcome aboard, Lucy."

"Lucretia," she corrects, and when Taako shakes her hand again he smiles.

"Lucretia."

**▽△▽**

On the opposite side of town, wind is swirling clusters of orange leaves down the sidewalks, pilling in gutters and up against front steps. The sky is a dusty blue that makes the leaves that much brighter, and the rows of terrace houses are an endless cream colored line stretching all the way to the horizon it seems.

"So what are we doing?"

Kravitz rings the bell without waiting for an answer, though he still gets one as Angus says, "This is the current offices of the graduate researchers from the University of London, one of whom is the man who was looking for his wife at the Rockseeker's. Mr. Bluejeans!"

As the door opens Angus stands as tall as possible. He always does that in detective mode—he says the taller he looks the more people take him seriously. He's not wrong.

"Please, call me Barry." The man standing in the doorway seems to ardently mean it. He's wearing a deep red cardigan with the sleeves hastily pushed up and pants that look like they've been worn several days in a row. Frankly, he looks like a wreck, but Kravitz doesn't blame him.

"Let me introduce you to Mr. Kravitz Avenal, co-founder of the Preternatural Investigation Agency."

Barry eagerly shakes Kravitz's offered hand and steps back to let them into the house. The entryway is full of boxes, and as Kravitz and Angus remove their coats Barry maneuvers through the minefield fairly easily. Kravitz has only known Barry for a moment but he can tell that this is largely uncharacteristic of the man.

"Angus and I spoke at the Rockseeker office, but I didn't have any of my notes with me, so I can show you those now?" Angus nods and Barry seems a little more steady before noticing that Kravitz is holding both coats. "Oh, I can take those, Mr. Avenal—"

"Kravitz, please."

"Okay." Barry stumbles the moment he's distracted, sliding a little on a loose piece of paper. Kravitz worries for a second whether he's going to have to catch him, but Barry finds his footing and takes their coats. "Uh, my office is on the second floor?"

"Lead the way."

Barry does, up the somewhat grand wooden staircase and onto the second floor. There the halls are just as crowded with evidence of the recent move, and Kravitz peeks into a few rooms as the go past to see they're just as hectic. Barry's office, though, is the most disorganized of all.

"Sorry about the lack of space," Barry says as he picks up stacks of books from the spare chair that Angus quickly takes. "The university is shunting us around a lot. We haven't really got the room for everyone and they keep delaying the building plans for the new building."

"It's fine," Kravitz says, still warily eyeing the overflowing bookcase and stacks of paper teetering over them. "We were just in the neighborhood and were wondering if you had come across any new information in your search for your wife."

Barry sets down the pile in his hands and sighs. It seems as though all the life has drained out of him with that one breath, and he deflates into his desk chair.

"Not really, no."

He pushes his smudgy glasses on top of his head briefly so he can rub his eyes before he flips through one of the notebooks in front of him.

"Right," Barry says. "Uh, stop me when you hear something you didn't know."

Angus sits forward on his chair eagerly, his pen poised over his own paper, ready to strike.

"Lu went missing around two weeks ago. She was looking for her brother—they got separated as kids and she was trying to track him down. She had a lot of vague leads so I've been following them all as far as they go to see which one was the one that... Well, the one she was following when she disappeared. So far the Rockseekers have been the most profitable but even then I haven't found much of anything."

"Have you talked to Gundren Rockseeker?" Angus asks without looking up from his notes.

"Nope." Barry shrugs. "Never saw him. Lu's friend, the one who introduced them, said she set up a meeting for them, but I haven't been able to catch him. He's always out of the office."

Angus nods and diligently jots that down. "I haven't been able to meet with him either," he says, "not since the first day, but I didn't have an appointment so he couldn't see me coming."

"Have you been getting any threatening mail or phone calls?" Kravitz asks. "Anyone that you think might be directly responsible for your wife’s disappearance?"

"Uh..." Barry awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. "This might sound a little crazy."

"We specialize in crazy," Kravitz says, and Angus's ardent nodding seems to reassure Barry somewhat.

"Okay, well, we've been having this problem with the phone. Sometimes it goes all staticky, but only when Lulu is using it, and only when calling certain numbers. She wouldn't tell me much because she didn't want to put me in danger—She thought there was something really bad going on that had to do with her search for her brother and wouldn't let me get involved."

He laughs a little and takes a sip of whatever mug is closest to him as a distraction. "She's always trying to protect me."

Angus reaches across the desk to pat Barry's hand reassuringly and it seems to help somewhat. As Barry takes a second to collect himself, Kravitz glances at his notes on the desk and spies something familiar.

"May I?"

Barry nods and Kravitz takes the notebook. The page is covered in small loopy handwriting detailing a lot of investigation with not a lot of detail. Most of the names are just initials like "GR" and "T" and other than a few telephone numbers and the diagrams of familiar sigils that caught Kravitz's eye, it sadly isn't very illuminating.

"Those are Lulu's notes," Barry explains. "You're looking at alchemists, right? My wife is— Or, well, I know one of the fellows here is interested in that kind of stuff too. I could introduce you?"

Angus jerks, his pen skidding across the page where he'd been copying the notes. "That would be great!"

Barry leads them down the hall to a room straight out of a gothic novel. It's not even an office, it's a _study_ , with pristine dark oak furniture and leather upholstery and volumes lining the walls that have probably never been opened. It's very neat, putting Barry's office to shame, but unsettlingly so, and the man who spins around behind the desk when Barry knocks on the door only adds to that.

"Hey, Greg?"

The man smiles and leans back in his chair. "Barry J. Bluejeans..." He says with a grin. "Who are your pals? Can't say I've seen them before, but I can't say I've seen _any_ of your friends before, so that's no surprise."

As Barry awkwardly pulls down the sleeves of his sweater and adjusts his glasses, Angus steps forward and offers his hand across the big desk.

"My name is Angus McDonald, this is Kravitz Avenal, and we're from the Preternatural Investigation Agency." The man raises an amused eyebrow but Angus continues unperturbed. "We're here looking into the disappearance of Cyrus Rockseeker."

His hand is still sticking out and Kravitz feels a little sympathetically awkward, but Angus appears to have no such reservations. He keeps eye contact with the man behind the desk and waits.

"Greg Grimaldis," the man says as he leans forward to shake Angus's much smaller hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

"They think there may have been alchemy involved and I was wondering if you could answer any questions they have. You know a lot more about this stuff than I do."

Grimaldis leans back in his chair and smugly preens. "Sure. Hey, Barold? There's some packages down at the depot. Could you go pick them up?"

Barry hesitates for a second, glancing at Kravitz asking if it's okay. When he nods, Barry says cautiously, "Alright. I'll be right back."

When he leaves Grimaldis waves at the two chairs across from his desk. As Kravitz and Angus take their seats, he leans back even further in his chair and lights a cigarette. Kravitz takes the opportunity to look across the room, noting the sheen on every surface and the heavy drapes covering what must be the only window. The longer Kravitz sits there, the more oppressive the room starts to feel. It's claustrophobia inducing in the worst way.

"So, Mr. Grimaldis..." Angus pulls out his journal again.

"Please, call me Greg," he interrupts.

Angus looks a little off kilter but continues, "Mr. Grimaldis, we have sketches and photos from two different locations that we would like your opinion on."

He pulls out the photos from Cyrus's apartment and opens his notes to the cleaner sketches of the sigils that were carved under the desk before sliding them both across the desk. Grimaldis leans forward just enough to reel them in and huffs a laugh.

"Amateur hour here," he says as he flips through the stack. Kravitz tries not to roll his eyes too noticeably. "Whoever your crook is doesn't do it for a living, that's for sure. The strokes are sloppy, the mixture is clearly pretty hasty, and I can only assume the ones you weren't prescient enough to get photos of were equally bad."

Grimaldis throws the photos back on the desk. "Ten bucks says it's some kid with too much time on his hands. Say, it wasn't you, was it, boy wonder?"

The atmosphere in the room becomes unevenly tense as Angus blushes uncomfortably and Grimaldis remains oblivious. Kravitz isn't sure what else to do, so he tries to quickly steer the conversation back on even ground.

"Actually, we suspect whoever it is doing this is responsible for the disappearance and possible murder of at least two people," he says evenly, "so we'd appreciate if you treated this with the utmost importance."

"Sure." Grimaldis sits up, but his expression isn't any more present. "I mean, what you've got here is your basic banishing hexagram. I'd say whoever did it is a bit old fashioned—based on the drip I'd say they're mixing their sulphur with a paint base but salt and a little mercury too, so they're working off some old school shit. Don't know what more I can tell you."

When he hands the photos back over it's in Kravitz's direction, even though Angus is the one already holding out his hand. It twinges in the back of Kravitz's mind like a bee sting, but he keeps saying nothing.

"Honestly I can't see this being that big a deal," Grimaldis continues as if nothing happened. "I mean, unless whatever it is they were trying to sever was already incredibly weak, there's no way this would have done anything. It's basically the magick equivalent of a kid's scribbles."

Grimaldis gives Kravitz what he thinks is a knowing smirk with a brief glance toward Angus and it's sort of the last straw. Kravitz doesn't like to think he loses his temper all that frequently, or all that excessively, but even he has his limits and the way Angus has been sinking smaller and smaller is his seat has gone just past it.

"Angus here is a partner at the agency, and by far the brightest person of any age that I know." Kravitz stands and drops his card on the desk. "If you think of anything further, you know where to reach me."

With that he walks out, Angus right behind him, only stopping briefly to grab their coats from Barry's office. They both seem a little unwilling to say anything and as they walk in silence, Kravitz can't help but dwell on the thoughts that have been nagging at the back of his mind all day. As they're headed down the stairs Kravitz tries to pick which one to start with.

"I'm..." He clears his throat. "I'm sorry about the outburst."

"Oh, it's okay," Angus says, blushing a little. "I appreciate you standing up for me."

Nothing too bad. Figuring he might as well, you know, while they're here, Kravitz says next, "And... I want to apologize for the other day."

Angus is blushing even more now. "Oh, no, sir, it's really all fine."

They both obviously don't want to be having this conversation, but Kravitz continues, "It was inappropriate and—"

"No, really, it's okay." Angus cuts him off and takes his hat off to wring it in his hands. "I... I'm glad. That you two still love each other."

"Oh." They've both stopped walking, at this point, and are awkwardly stopped in the middle of the main staircase. "Well, uh... We do."

Angus nods. "I know. My parents... They didn't. I don't think they even cared about each other."

Kravitz realizes distantly how little he knows about Angus, and especially his past. He knows that Angus's parents travelled a lot so he lived with his grandfather at a university, that they died abroad right before his grandfather did at home. He knows something happened in the year Angus spent at the orphanage, something that makes him flinch at loud noises and shy away from cracked windows, and escaped to live on the streets where Kravitz met him. He knows Angus is allergic to strawberries and that his favorite color is dark blue. He doesn't know how old Angus actually is. He doesn't even know if McDonald is really his last name.

"Angus?"

Angus looks up, eyes wide behind his glasses. He looks afraid, and Kravitz hates it, so he puts on his most reassuring smile and hops down a few stairs so they're closer to eye level.

"Angus," he says again, "Taako and I care about each other very much. But we care about you even more. You know that, right?"

"I do." Angus hugs him tight around the waist but pulls away before Kravitz can reciprocate. "I love you guys too."

He starts down the stairs again and Kravitz follows him, saying, "Taako especially, though he won't admit it."

"He's kind of a dick, isn't he?"

"Yes he is." Kravitz holds open the door, reluctantly subjecting them again to the cold air. "But we love him anyway."

Angus beams up at him. "Yes we do," he says with a nod of complete certainty.

They run into Barry the moment they cross the threshold. He has his arm full of packages and Kravitz takes a few off the top before they topple over.

"Thanks." Barry sets down his load on top of another stack of boxes just inside the door. When Kravitz hands him the rest and goes to leave, Barry says, "Hey, I, uh... I just wanted to say I'm sorry I couldn't be of any help."

"It's fine. I'm sorry we couldn't help with your wife." Kravitz pulls on his gloves as a sharp breeze pulls itself down the street. "Maybe we can take on your case after all this is through. I know Taako would be interested for sure—at the very least he would be sympathetic enough to not pretend to not care. He's looking for a long lost sibling just like your wife."

It's a good thing Barry has already set down his packages because he looks like he would drop anything in his hands right now. "Who?"

"Oh, Taako. My husband. Well, husband and business partner." Kravitz points a thumb over his shoulder, missing Angus's intrigued face behind him. "Actually I'm meant to be meeting him right now, if...?"

"Right..." Barry frowns at the middle distance in the direction of the sidewalk and Kravitz is about to ask if he's alright when he shakes his head. "Right, no, of course. Thank you for your help. I'll call if I find anything that might be useful."

Barry shakes Kravitz's hand, nods down to Angus, and shuts the door behind him.

"Well that was a bit abrupt," Kravitz remarks. "Did he seem off to you?"

Kravitz looks down to see Angus staring thoughtfully at the door, fiddling with the edge of his journal. He starts a little when Kravitz addresses him, so Kravitz changes his question.

"Are you alright?"

Angus considers the building for a moment longer before glancing up at Kravitz. "Actually," he says, "I have a few more questions for Mr. Bluejeans. But I'll be back by dinner."

He hugs Kravitz briefly before also disappearing inside, and Kravitz can hear him calling out as the door swings shut again. As he turns home, he's only a little worried. It's a nice change.

He doesn't make it two blocks before he goes to take a shortcut through the wrong alley. The last thing he remembers thinking is maybe the short shadow coming up from behind him is Angus coming back to tell him some new clue. Then it all goes darker.

**▽△▽**

Taako throws himself around the last corner and into the morgue with Kravitz right behind him. Above them come thundering footsteps and then the frustrated rattle of a locked door, but neither of them have the time to worry as they skid into the mortuary proper.

After properly locking it behind them, Kravitz leans back against the door panting. Taako has already started rifling through papers and pulling open drawers, but Kravitz needs a second to catch his breath.

"Who even are these guys?" He asks when he does.

"Generic thugs, could be anyone," Taako shrugs. "I don't know if you noticed but we tend to piss people off."

" _You_ tend to piss people off," Kravitz corrects. When he joins the search it's in a bit more orderly a fashion, but he still can't find the documents they're looking for. Raven is usually so organized, but Kravitz is hard to replace and she's still having a tough time doing so years later.

"Yeah, and you legally chained yourself to all of this for eternity." Taako slams a drawer shut at the same time noise clatters down the stairs at the opposite end of the hall. "My enemies are your enemies, in sickness and in health."

"Remind me again why I did that?"

Kravitz is expecting a quip about how dazzling Taako's personality is (true) or how hard and fast Kravitz falls for everything Taako even suggests (also true), or maybe even something about mixing business and pleasure (equally true, see, what he's getting at is there's a lot of banter ready reasons).

Regardless, what he isn't expecting is for Taako to press Kravitz against the nearest filing cabinet and kiss the living daylights out of him. But that's what he gets, and he knows, such a hardship, but it's more than a little distracting.

By the time Kravitz gets enough air to his brain that it can work properly again, Taako is back to rifling through papers on the other end of the room.

"Oh," he hears himself say distantly. "Yes, that sounds about right."

"Where do you guys keep the formaldehyde?" Taako asks. No, wait, he's over by the other shelf of bottles and jars and whatnot. When did that happen?

"What?" Kravitz asks, still in a bit of a daze.

"Formaldehyde, Kravdaver, keep up." Taako glances away from his picking through the shelves to give Kravitz a look. He's feigning irritation but Kravitz recognizes the pleased tilt of his mouth, the glint in his eye that he's happily on the exact same page. It's very distracting. "Hey, pass me one of those trays?"

Kravitz does and watches as Taako pours one clear bottle into it, then another, then a lot of waving with one hand and pulling out a cigarette with another.

"A light, dear?"

"Of course." As Kravitz holds out his lighter, he continues, "What are we sciencing?"

"Our ticket out of here." Taako winks. "Boss lady has insurance, right?"

Concerning. Squinting a little, Kravitz says, "She hasn't been my boss for years, but yes. What exactly are you doing?"

"I'd go crack open the fire exit if I were you," is all Taako says before he sets his tray of now semi-solid something on the floor, throws open the door, and drops his cigarette. The white solid bursts into flames immediately and Kravitz hurries to push open the small window over the far table as Taako tilts one end of the tray with his toe, sending the burning gel out into the corridor. The slow crawl of it covers the tile, quickly catching when it reaches any kind of debris in the hall. From further down, a door bangs open.

Taako shuts the door just as the shouting reaches them. Locking it, he finally turns back to Kravitz.

"Shall we?"

The alarms start just as Taako takes Kravitz's attentive hand and climbs up the table and out the cracked window.

**▽△▽**

The rest of the afternoon is quiet but tense. After a long conversation with Lucretia that Taako tuned out as his headache made the words fade like the static of a radio between stations, there's not much to do. Kravitz is sitting on the sofa staring at the ceiling, ostensibly flipping through old case notes for something that might help. Across the room Taako is pushing around scraps and clippings and photos. Although he still has the air of focus, the blank page of the notebook in front of him says he's having just as must success. There's still hours until dinner and the intermittent time stretches ahead heavy with stagnant dread like something is coming and there's nothing to be done but wait for the blade to fall.

When the phone on the side table trills Kravitz jumps at the opportunity to do something. "Kravitz Avenal, Preternatural Investigation Agency. How may I help you this evening?"

"Kravitz," comes the dark voice from the phone, and Kravitz rolls his eyes a little at the dramatics. He is _very_ glad she can't see him.

"Raven," Kravitz says, trying to make commiserating eye contact with Taako, who is too involved in his work to see. "How can I help you?"

"There's a body here you might be interested in," she says curtly, and before Kravitz can reply she's already gone again.

"Well okay then..."

Kravitz hangs the phone back up with a sigh. For a moment he just leans his head on his hand, covering his eyes. When the light comes back in it feels brighter than before, and he squints across at Taako as he says, "I have to go, Raven wants to speak with me. I think. I don't know, she was very... abstruse."

"Always with the dramatics."

"It's an occupational hazard."

The jokes help hide it somewhat but Kravitz is actually kind of terrified. The further they get into the mire of this investigation, the darker it gets, and the thought of having Taako out of sight for more than a moment is paralyzing.

"I'll be back before dinner," he tries, "and Angus will too."

"I can handle myself, Kravy." Taako raises a pointed eyebrow at him from the table. Kravitz isn't entirely sure he buys it what with the bags under said eyebrow and eye, but he himself is too tired to argue.

"Alright." He leans back into the sofa one last time before standing and gathering his coat. When he reaches the table Taako is already back to studying the same set of notes. He can't help but linger when he kisses Taako's temple, and apparently Taako can feel the worry Kravitz can't help.

"I'll be fine," Taako says without looking up, his hand idly drawing spirals on his paper.

"I know that. And besides," Kravitz says with an edge of teasing, "you promised Merle we'd be at brunch this Sunday and you hate how he always forgives you when you don't show up."

"Who?"

Kravitz pauses where he was about to pull away. "What?"

"Merle...?" Taako tilts his head and stares at the floor confused. "Merle... Right, my... dad?"

"Taako?" As he sits Kravitz takes his hand. It's shaking just slightly and Taako doesn't seem to notice when Kravitz applies more pressure to try and still him. It doesn't work, and it's like he can feel the bones in Taako's hand vibrating. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Shaking his head adamantly, Taako braces his hands on the table and leans back in his chair hard enough to push himself back a few inches. "Merle is my... dad. No, he's not my dad, I hate calling him that, don't."

Kravitz frowns a little as Taako half stands. "I didn't. You did."

He falters and starts to sit down again. He stops. "Right..."

Taako walks into the kitchen and when he returns Kravitz is gone. Right.

And then an hour or so passes and Taako is looking into space, staring at wallpaper and behind that, nothing, something, just out of reach, just beyond what his vocabulary can describe. The pencil in his hand is moving without his notice, tracing over the same shape again and again automatically.

A car horn outside sounds and jolts Taako from his trance. He looks around at the room like he's just seeing it for the first time and for just a second he _is_. He's never been here before, but wait, no, he's lived here for years.

The pencil in his hand snaps and he realizes it's there. Looking down at his hand, he sees the paper beneath it, and the drawings on it. Right under his nose... Dozens of hexagrams in thick lead strokes that have been gone over hundreds of times. How long has he been staring at the walls? The light is a greying blue now and he has this insistently clawing feeling like he's supposed to be somewhere else. He just doesn't know where that is.

The need to move is stronger than any other feeling, though, so Taako starts casting about the room for his coat, his bag, all the things he needs that makes him who he is. His umbrella, where was his umbrella? Let's see, Angus had come over that morning for breakfast but they were out of strawberries for their waffles so Taako had...

What had he done? What had— He's holding the umbrella. It's his umbrella, and he doesn't know when or why he started thinking of it as his. It's thrumming in his hand, something palpable running through it. Or maybe it's just his hand shaking. The room starts to sway, the photos on the mantelpiece in front of him blurry. For a second, the world comes undone.

Who was he thinking about? Angus, child, toes barely touching the floor under his chair. Kravitz, husband, trying not to look disappointed when Angus immediately has every answer to the crossword. Taako...

Taako?

Who is Taako?

His legs give out underneath him like a marionette with cut strings. They find him in a crumpled heap on the floor, when they come.

**▽△▽**

The flat is quiet. The afternoon traffic is muffled by the windows which have been screwed shut since it started getting cold, and the heater ticks somewhat ominously floors below, but other than that there's absolutely no noise.

Taako hasn't moved from his spot at the window since early that morning. The seal on the right corner is thin and lets in just the slightest chill, but Kravitz put a blanket around his shoulders sometime after lunch and he's fine. Once the people he'd watched walk to work that morning start to return in the opposite direction, he decides to pack it up and goes to stare at the bedroom ceiling instead.

After awhile of just listening to the cars and wind and boiler clanking, he slowly picks up the handset and trips his fingers around the dial.

"Hello hello."

"Wow, on the first try," Taako drawls. "It's a red letter day for technologically inept grandparents everywhere."

"What's up, kiddo?" Merle asks. "What sage fatherly advice do you require in your time of need?"

His voice is twice as scratchy over the phone, like a magnified caricature of himself. It always makes him sound twice as old. So far he hasn't forgotten he's on the phone and tried to walk away from the wall yet, though, so it's already one of their better phone calls.

Taako starts to try to spin some sarcastic excuse but accidentally sighs and feels all the wit drain out of him. "Angus graduates 'primary school' this month."

"Damn, already?" Merle's low whistle hisses through the receiver. "Thought he only started, what, a couple years ago?"

"Two. He was already disappointed it took this long. Precocious little shit."

"What's next for the kid?"

"Well, with a generous donation from the Highchurch Foundation..." Taako trails off so Merle can groan. "Eton. I don't really know what that means, but Krav almost fainted at the letter and Angus wouldn't stop grinning for a week after, so I assume it’s good."

"Means your son's a genuine genius," and Taako doesn't argue any part of it. "So what's the problem? If you're worried about it, don't be. We'll be glad to help."

"It's not that," Taako spits, but he can't make any more words come out. "It's..."

When Taako fails to continue, Merle says, "Knowing that kid he'll probably burn through those boarders in half that time, so whatever your problem is, at least it won't be one for long."

In theory it should comforting, but in actuality it feels like the last straw and breaks Taako's already fragile composure.

"And then what?" He snaps. "What am I supposed to do then? Jesus, it's like I meet the kid and his life starts going twice as fast and it's like... It's like I'm leeching off his youth or something and once he becomes a real person I'm gonna have to deal with the fact that that's my kid and he's already gone and I'm old now, I'm a dad and my kid went to university, past tense, fuck."

For a second he just breathes, embarrassingly heavy like he's just run a marathon instead of said a few more sentences at once than he's used it. After he realizes what he's doing he covers the mouth of the phone and shuts his eyes. The only sound is him, and the distant silence of Merle on the other side if he concentrates hard enough. He focuses on that, and the feeling of the blankets beneath him and the chill of the empty flat.

When he eventually uncovers the receiver Merle can apparently tell. "You alright?"

Taako starts laughing and he can't stop. It quickly spirals into hysterics, and he can barely make out Merle doing the same. The sound fills the flat with a helium kind of noise that somehow feels worse than the silence. It makes him lightheaded and dizzy in all the wrong ways, but even as Taako feels himself losing his grip literally on the phone and figuratively on reality, he can't stop himself.

"No," he gets out through the delirium, "I'm really not." The heavy breathing is there again, for a shorter time but still enough to be noticed.

"None of us ever are, kid," Merle says with his characteristic hint of fatherly ease. "We just keep following our own footsteps."

Taako rolls his eyes, still smiling, and makes a noise so that Merle knows he is. "If I wanted cryptic advice I'd have gone to one of those stupid fortune teller machines."

"Of course you wanted cryptic advice," Merle says. "That's _why_ you called me."

To that Taako doesn't say anything. There isn't anything to be said.

**▽△▽**

When Kravitz comes to again it's to the sound of people shouting. An unpleasant way to wake up in general, but especially with the pounding headache Kravitz has right now it's excruciating. He tries to cover his ears reflexively and it isn't until he finds himself unable to that he realizes his arms are held behind his back. Because he's tied to a chair.

Well, that's an... unfortunate development.

"How could you let it get this far?" One of the voices is shouting, and Kravitz dares to peek. It takes his eyes a second to adjust to the flickering light, but he can make out the two shapes arguing on the opposite side of the room. "All you had to do was finish the banishment so they wouldn’t remember each other or us and then everything would be fine! How did it get to this point?"

"I had it under control!" The other voice says. "How was I supposed to know there were so many of them?"

"I leave you alone for one week," the first voice says, "and the whole thing unravels. You were supposed to take care of this."

By now Kravitz can see enough to recognize the baseboard and rugs of the Rockseeker offices, so the voices must be the cousins. He keeps his head down in case they look over and tries to think through what he was doing last when he feels something touch his fingers and jerks.

Thankfully the men are too busy arguing and doing something to the wall to notice. Kravitz dares to crane his head back, trying to see who or what it is behind him. After a moment of wiggling Kravitz's fingers come in contact with a bit of fabric that feels vaguely familiar, so he tugs on it.

"Ugh..."

"Taako," Kravitz furtively whispers, "don't move, okay?"

"Wh—" Taako starts to say, but when Kravitz manages to awkwardly twist around and squeeze his fingers, he stops. Even without seeing him Kravitz knows what Taako is doing right now—he just did the same thing a minute ago.

Their stealth comes in handy when the shorter cousin throws a jar at the floor and both are prepared to withhold a flinch. Kravitz can see now that there's a hexagram painted there and the edges of the new splatter overlap with it, silver over yellow and black and flecks of white.

"This is a seven percent solution, we need at least twenty-five," he says.

"Seven was all they had at the shops."

" _Then go to a different shop_ , Gundren, use your _head_. You fucked up the first one enough, I don't need you ruining this any further..."

The shorter one who must be Cyrus Rockseeker stomps through the room Taako and Kravitz are tied up in and out the door, Gundren on his heels. The door behind him closes with a resounding thud, and both detectives are silent for a moment before Taako sighs and leans his head all the way back until it rests on Kravitz's shoulder.

"Just like the good old days, huh?" He asks in a wistful tone of voice that obscures his undoubtedly racing thoughts. "You ever miss them?"

"Not the getting held hostage part, no." Kravitz tries to turn around enough that Taako can see his unimpressed look but to no avail. "Okay, you can't see it, but I'm giving you that look. You know the one."

"I do." Taako twists his hand enough to poke the middle of Kravitz's palm and it's oddly comforting. "Hey, you smell that?"

"Are you setting me up for some inappropriate punchline?"

"No, although I wish I could come up with one fast enough." Taako's chair squeaks against the floor. "It smells like sulphur in here so I figure they must have some for the ritual. Can you see the circle on your side?"

"Um..."

Now that the Rockseekers are gone Kravitz can look around the room in full. They're in the converted parlor with the drapes over the front windows gone. Beyond this room, through the archway and into the room where the lesser accountants sit, is the painted wall. Desks are pushed to the edges of the room, rugs rolled back, all to make space for the intricate patterns covering the hardwood. They've left their candles burning, although they're hard pressed to compete with the remaining lamps, and they send flickering shapes across the circle.

"Slightly," Kravitz says. "It's black paint, I think, and there's yellow smeared on one side, probably the sulphur. The right side has something silvery on it, and they join at the middle three points."

"Mercury..." Taako trails off in his thoughtful _busy piecing something together_ way.

"Mhm," Kravitz hums so as not to interrupt his practically audible thinking.

"Awesomeness. Second question." More chair squeaking, and then: "Wanna give me a hand?"

Kravitz looks back over his shoulder to see Taako leaning backwards, the front two legs of his chair propped up on the little step up to the door. "What on earth on you doing?"

"Saving our asses, now tip back."

Only a little suspicious, Kravitz does so, knocking back into Taako's chair and pushing it up enough for Taako to drag himself fully onto the step. After a few more seconds of wiggling, he manages to get his hands on his umbrella and scoots back to the edge with it.

"Ready?"

"Ready for wh—?"

Kravitz doesn't have time to finish before Taako is launching himself backwards off the step, the umbrella sticking out behind him. Kravitz's hands try to reach for him but he's powerless to do anything as the umbrella snaps beneath him and Taako falls. He doesn't have time to so much as think to ask if he's okay before everything goes white. With a blinding flash, the room is filled with scorching dark heat that threatens to melt the paint of the walls but is gone just as quickly as it had arrived.

When he finishes blinking the spots from his eyes the first thing Kravitz sees is Taako still bound to his chair and lying back on the ground. The snapped handle of his umbrella lies next to him, the rest of it poking out from under him, and he's looking up at the ceiling and... smiling?

And oh, that would be why. There's a woman floating above him, barely visible against the dusky purple wall behind her. She's almost identical Taako except for the way her grayscale coloring is negatively reflected. She's hard to focus on, blurry around the edges like a bad photograph, and Kravitz's head and chest hurt the longer he looks at her, but he can tell that she's smiling just as much as Taako is. She's glowing, and not just literally.

"My brother the ghost hunter," the shadow says.

"My sister the ghost," Taako replies with an eyebrow raise, and shadow Lup throws herself down at him in an attempted hug. She phases right through him and into the floor a little, and both of them frown.

"Well dang," Taako says. "There goes Plan A."

"Don't worry, we'll fix it." Lup floats back above him. "The two of us back together again? Nothing in the universe could stop us."

She's still smiling but looks like she's about to cry, which is a disconcerting expression to see on Taako's face before seeing it mirrored on actual Taako's face as well.

"And besides," Lup continues, "I used up all my energy getting my umbrella all the way to your place. You were on the opposite side of London this whole time and I never even knew?"

"I knew it was you!" Taako crows, grinning up at her. "Even when I couldn’t remember you existed, I knew it was you."

"Of course you did," she says. "How could you ever forget? You're the other half of my heart, babe. I'd know you anywhere."

They both grin at each other for a second and Kravitz is loathe to ruin their reunion but he is starting to lose feeling in his hands.

"So, don't get me wrong," Taako starts after a moment, "I'm loving this tender family moment, but maybe you could help us out a bit here?"

"Right." Lup turns her wicked shadow grin at Kravitz. "'Us'. You and your beau."

Kravitz sincerely hopes she can't tell that he's blushing, although she probably has a sixth sense for it anyway, being Taako's twin and everything.

"Lup, meet Kravitz, that dear, sweet husband of mine," and yes, Taako's upside down and matching grin means he also has noticed. "Kravvy baby, meet Lup, my apparently ghostly twin."

"Charmed." Kravitz wiggles. "Can someone untie me now?"

They both ignore him as Lup says, "You know, I've got a husband t—"

"You _what_?" Taako interrupts. "And I wasn't your best man?"

"Oh, because you're so innocent?" Lup crosses her arms and floats a little higher. "Where was my invite— When?"

After a second of guilty thinking, Taako says hesitantly, "About four years ago?"

The candlelight has nothing on Lup as she lights up with white spectral fire from within. "You've been married for _four_ —"

Kravitz is just about to resign himself to being tied to this chair forever when the door bangs open, revealing the livid and bewildered Rockseeker cousins. Lup flickers out of existence just in time and for a second there's nothing but collectively stunned silence.

"Well hey!" Taako says eventually. "Fancy seeing you two here."

Before the Rockseekers can do anything, he flips on his side and wriggles his arms free from around the slats of his chair broken in the fall. His wrists are still tied behind him when Gundren tackles him, but in their scuffle he manages to get hands in front of him and get a good swing at Gundren's head.

"Shit," he says as he stumbles back. Taako takes the opportunity to untie himself and makes a move towards Kravitz but is stopped by Gundren stumbling back into his wake.

"Oh for crying out..." Taako picks up a candlestick from the table behind him and bring it down over Gundren's head. It doesn't have the effect he seems to have been going for, making a light sounding _thwap_ so he hits Gundren a few more times in the head and shoulders. "Is this plastic? Fucking cheapskates!"

Gundren eventually staggers enough for Taako to dart away. He groggily grabs at Taako and manages to get a handful of sleeve. Taako is much faster and more conscious, but Gundren has the advantage of sheer mass, so they continue to struggle.

Lup, meanwhile, is working her way to being useful in the physical plane. In the corner where the rest of their gear is stashed, she's focusing as hard as possible on picking up Taako's gun. Every so often she's been able make it twitch just the slightest into her hand, but mostly she just keeps phasing through it.

Perched on one of the front desks, Cyrus is watching the fight with disinterest and only glances away occasionally to make sure Kravitz is still tied up. Eventually, though, his eyes start scanning the room and edge too close to Lup for comfort, and Kravitz starts to panic. There's not much he can do, though. His hands are literally tied, so Kravitz throws himself sideways.

" _Ow_."

It hurts more than it was supposed to. Kravitz tries flex his shoulder back into place but can't as his entire weight is pressing down on it. It does the trick, though, and Cyrus walks over to him instead of Lup, who sends Kravitz a grateful wink.

Cyrus must have seen him wince as he turns Kravitz on his back and steps on that same shoulder. Kravitz only just barely manages to push up with his feet enough that his wrists don't snap underneath him, but the pain is still enough to make him black out for a moment.

"You've been stumbling around the edges of this one for awhile now, huh?"

Cyrus grins, probably because he's looming over someone for the first time in his life. Kravitz refrains from making that joke out loud, but he maybe smiles a little accidentally and quickly turns to grimacing when Cyrus presses down a little harder.

"Everywhere we turned it was you two," he continued. "Every deal that went sour you were there, screwing us over. At first I thought you were just toying with us, you know, taking us down piece by piece just to prolong the torture. That we'd underestimated you."

He turns before Taako can finish sneaking up on him with an elbow to the stomach.

"But no!"

Now that Taako is closer to his level Cyrus goes for the throat, knocking him to the ground. His head lands close to Kravitz's and as he watches for fluttering eyes or anything like that he tunes out Cyrus's continuing rant.

"You were just dismantling my life's work on accident. You were mucking up plans so intricate that your shallow mind couldn't even comprehend just with sheer luck. And then your sister doing the same thing. Her, at least, we took care of, although I’m sure you have no idea what that means. That was sort of the point."

Cyrus pauses for a moment for the world’s most sickening grin directed at the still-unconscious Taako.

"And then even when you were on the case you had absolutely no idea what you were doing. You never even noticed! Do you even remember all the times you almost single-handedly ruined my life?"

He's so caught up in his building rage that he fails to see Lup until she's hovering a few feet above him.

"Hey!"

Cyrus startles, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to turn around. She grins.

"Remember remember this, bitch."

Lup bursts into flames, black and white flickering around her spectral form in dizzying patterns coming to life. Suddenly every part of her is back in vibrant color and though she's still just a diaphanous projection in the air, she is red and orange and yellow and blue and every other color imaginable. Her hands are giving out waves of heat and it only takes a second before the flames direct in a deadly column. Cyrus doesn't even have time to blink before it aims straight for his face.

Even with all its strength, the fire only manages to scorch him a little, but it's enough to knock Cyrus away from the detectives as he stumbles back into a corner. Lup, of course, follows him, keeping her beam of flames as steady on one place as she can.

Having awoken somewhere in the scuffle, Taako groans and rolls up onto his hands and knees. He carefully tips Kravitz in his chair onto his side and starts to untie him. Gundren has crawled across the room to them again but Taako just casually kicks him again before leaning back to give Kravitz room to sit up.

As Taako turns to helpfully chuck a nearby potted plant in Cyrus's direction, Kravitz flexes his wrists. His shoulder still aches and he pulls himself out of his ruined jacket to rub at it, but the pain is secondary to making sure Taako is okay. Taako has a nasty habit of blowing off major injuries as nothing (while the tiniest scrapes are the end of the world), but other than the thick line of blood running from his nose and a few burgeoning bruises, he just looks pissed off.

Kravitz wipes away the blood with the cuff of a sleeve and Taako rolls his eyes but there's no malice or any kind of energy at all behind it. Cyrus is screaming is the background, but Lup seems to have it under control enough that they can take a moment.

"So, your sister?"

Taako's laugh as he sags into Kravitz's shoulder is a touch hysterical. Between him and Lup's inferno Kravitz can't feel the cold anymore, and only now does he realize retrospectively it was near freezing. Someone must have left the door open.

"Hey, lovebirds?" They turn to Lup and see that her fire is waning and her grin is a little taut. "This is sweet and all, and I'm super glad to see my brother so happy, but you maybe wanna lend your old pal Lup a hand over here?"

Taako stands, stopping briefly to grab Kravitz's coat from the corner. When he approaches Lup cuts off her fire, sagging as most of her color drains, and Taako steps forward to cuff him to the nearest radiator. Cyrus only screams for a moment more before he quiets dejectedly and the three of them heave a collective sigh.

Like a tinted photo, Lup has only managed to maintain a bit of her vibrancy, but she's still beaming when the starts to float back down to the ground.

"You know it's the seventh, right?" Taako says when she lands. His voice is much stronger than the fact that he's bruised and bloody and lying back on the floor would suggest. "I know you've been living in an umbrella for a while but you're a couple days late with quip."

"Fucking whatever, dude." Lup blows imaginary smoke from her fingerguns. "That was badass and you know it."

Taako nods in concession and drags Kravitz back with him to lean against a desk. Once they've all caught their breath, they stare at each other awkwardly before he says, "So, uh, now what?"

Before anyone can pretend to have an answer a door bangs open and a plethora of voices can be heard clamoring their way to the room. First in the doorway is Angus, with Barry right behind him. Barry skids to a stop, forcing a pileup of policemen and also Magnus behind him that he doesn't even notice. Angus has run over and thrown himself at Kravitz and Taako, babbling about putting pieces together, but still no one else can look away from the reunion.

"Oh..." Barry says in a very small voice. "You're a... ghost."

Lup gives a sort of half shrug that is both nonchalant and sad.

Whatever he's thinking, Barry recovers quickly. "That's okay. I can work with that." He steps forward and holds his hands up in a rough approximation of holding hers. It doesn't really work, but the gesture is sweet. "We can figure out a way to fix this."

"Oh babe," Lup says with a small smile, "I've been trapped in an umbrella for weeks. What do you think I've been doing, playing phantom mahjong? We're gonna need... a _whole_ lotta diamonds."

"...because he’s been having trouble remembering things lately and Barry said his wife said the same thing and he showed me a picture and she looked just like Taako and we finally put the pieces together but I was so worried we wouldn't get here in time," Angus is saying, "because we had to stop at the police station, but then we ran into Magnus outside and he told us that he was tracking down a magician that you said you wouldn't investigate and that she—"

"Hey, Aggie," Taako interrupts once he gets a chance to, "wanna meet your aunt?"

Angus freezes. Lup freezes. Hell, even Kravitz is a little too still to be a coincidence. Taako starts to wonder if maybe he couldn't have come up with a slightly better distraction, one that was less likely to get him murdered by either pride or fists.

"You have a _kid_ too?" Lup is over their little happy family pile in a flash. "If I wasn't a ghost right now and you weren't already bleeding I would be punching the shit out of you right now, oh my god."

Angus's look of fear is quickly replaced by sheer glee and he sits up in all his pristine boy wonder glory to throw a million questions at Lup. She answers everything with a smile of her own, promising to let him do all his ghost experiments and teach him everything his "admittedly pretty cool dads" won't.

In the background Cyrus and Gundren are stirring just in time to witness each other being properly arrested and escorted out of the building. Magnus is on the phone with someone, Taako can only guess who—probably Merle, if his luck has anything to say about it.

Taako only looks away from Angus interrogating Lup when Kravitz taps him on the shoulder. He's holding out a bottle of wine, and when Taako raises a questioning eyebrow he explains, "It was in one of the drawers."

With a grin Taako takes a long swig. It tastes a little dusty, and now that he thinks about it the room smells like burnt hair, ozone, sulphur, and he can hear even through the heavy curtains the whistle of police and firetrucks, the clamor of onlookers freshly awoken by the commotion. Now that he thinks about it the room looks like a war zone with its scorched walls and shattered furniture. He suddenly feels heavy as the day catches up to him, and that's when finally he looks over.

Kravitz next to him is tired and holding his shoulder, but he's still warm and staring at Taako with that look he gets at the end of a long day when he's just glad to be home. Taako knows that look—he feels the same—and Angus and Lup are chattering excitedly at each other and even Magnus seems to have drawn Barry out of his shell and into a happy looking conversation. The room is in ruin, his sister is technically dead, but they're all there, in one place, and as safe as anyone can be.

Taking another swig, Taako shifts around until he can lean back against Kravitz. His bones are aching, there's a distinct bruise forming in the middle of his stomach, and his throat still hurts, but the wine is helping, and so is Kravitz's arm around his waist.

(To be honest, though, it's mostly the wine.)

**▽△▽**

"Why are we here again?" Merle asks.

"It's my turn to host brunch!" Taako walks back into the sitting room just to glare at him. It's pretty impressive, mostly because he's still flipping an omelette like nothing could ever bother him. "You numskulls are gonna regret finally letting me take over. I'm gonna blow all your brunches out of the water."

"Don't see how that's gonna happen," Merle says, spraying crumbs across the coffee table that Barry is perched on. "At least at our house we don't have twice as many people as we have seats."

"Why don't you go camp out in the bathroom, huh?" Taako walks back to the kitchen with a smug little grin. "Pretty sure we could fit at least four of you in our tub. And Barold? Not on the rug."

From the sofa Merle gives him the finger as Barry looks up guiltily from where he had been brushing the crumbs off the table. Taako's delighted laughter from the other room just emphasizes his apparent omnipotence.

Kravitz watches all of this with fond amusement. He's leaning on the mantelpiece as it's the best vantage point to every so often catch a glimpse of Taako and Lup's extravagant cooking routine. It's not a front row seat, but they'd kicked everyone out when they'd first started a few hours ago. Kravitz is starting to seriously consider Taako's proposal to knock down the wall between kitchen and sitting room. He can see a lot more brunches like this.

A glance of sunlight off a passing car bounces back off glass panes on the mantle next to him. There are new photos over the fireplace now, as well as older ones shuffled to the front. Shinier frames housing photos of Angus and Barry playing cricket on the Highchurches' lawn, Taako and Lup's birthday party a few months ago, Lup's first day back in her body, the entire group squinting their eyes under hats and hands and sunglasses on a stony shore line the mantle, interspersed with knickknacks that have no meaning to anyone outside of this room. In the center Lup and Barry on their wedding day sit right next to Taako and Kravitz on theirs, flanked by Angus's first day of school and his diploma from not that much later.

There's a yelp in the kitchen, and then some muffled cursing and the sound of running water. Angus jumps up from his cushy ottoman and rushes in, Magnus right behind him, and they clamor in the doorway until Taako pushes them back out.

"It's fine, _god_ ," he says, wiping his hands first on Magnus's shirt and then on the apron around his waist. "Lup just forgot again that she's corporeal and tried to take the scones out of the oven without gloves."

"You try being spectral for months and see how well you reintegrate," Lup calls from the kitchen. "The ghost world is so much better than this."

Taako turns to Kravitz. "We got any of that aloe stuff?"

Even though Kravitz knows that Taako knows they do because he uses some every night before bed, he nods and leads Taako back to their bedroom. He's expecting it when Taako closes the door behind them, and is expecting it only slightly less when he follows the door's click with a kiss.

"There's too many damn people in this house," Taako says as he starts trying to unbutton Kravitz's vest. His fingers leave little flour fingerprints on the dark grey that are less annoying than endearing.

Kravitz smiles. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Taako tries to pull off his usual sardonic twist but Kravitz is too sweet and he wavers as he tries to brush off the flour. Kravitz is gently cradling his elbows, though, and it makes it kinda hard. Not that he's complaining.

"Why this all of a sudden?" Kravitz asks at just the right time to completely crack Taako's indifferent facade into a blushingly irritated smile.

"Just." He waves an inarticulate hand. "With the light behind you and the smiling and everything, you looked gorgeous and I just thought, 'Wow. I'm _married_ to that.'"

"You are," Kravitz says with a gentle quirk of a smile.

"And then I remembered that means I can get you alone whenever I want and had to take advantage of the opportunity presented to me."

Just like that the moment is not gone, per se, but changed. It is no longer a heavy golden sweetness, but the underlying feelings remain as they always do, and when Taako leans up for a kiss it is perhaps with a touch more obvious a care than usual.

They both seem to forget, there in the spring's watery but warm sunlight, in each other's embrace. All Taako can smell is the cinnamon Lup had dumped on his head earlier and all he can taste is the orange juice Kravitz has been nervously drinking all morning hoping everything goes well. Behind them the sounds of their whole family is a distant but constant presence. It's all just so endlessly warm.

Taako is about to suggest the nearest flat surface when a loud thud comes from the living room, quickly followed by Lup saying, "Geez, why do you guys keep all this junk," and Angus's, "Mrs. Buchanan!"

Just like that the spell is broken. Taako sighs and rests his forehead on Kravitz's shoulder. In the distance the loud sound of wind whipping starts over various yelling and Angus trying to calmly shout over everyone with instructions. When something smashes, Taako rolls his head to face out and ask, "Never a dull moment, huh?"

Kravitz chuckles and kisses Taako on the forehead. "Afraid not."

He pulls back as Taako sighs and straightens.

"Alright. Pass me the salt?" He says it will all possible ease, like they're just sitting down for dinner.

"Of course." Kravitz passes him the nearest box (which is on the dresser as they are very well prepared) with the same effortlessness. He ducks back in for one more kiss before opening the door and offering Taako his arm. "Shall we?"

In the distance Magnus and Merle are yelling, although it's hard to make out if they're yelling separately or together or even at each other. Lucretia's placating tones are audible under everything else, and the wind is still growing but Lup's laughter is twice as loud.

Taako smiles slowly. "We shall."

**▽△▽**

Stagnant summer air is thickly cut by the whirring of fan blades. Outside the last of London's drunks are stumbling home, their shouts muffled by the muggy air trapped between the buildings, slowly cooling in the night.

Inside their room, Taako and Kravitz are struggling to fall asleep for multiple reasons, mostly the heat. The sheets under them are somehow both the thinnest they own and still oppressively thick, absorbing sweat and hot air. The still-high temperature doesn't mean they're going to let go of each other's hands, though. That and Taako's head on Kravitz's shoulder are their only points of connection in concession to the heat.

"Is that crazy?" Taako asks. "That we met a year ago and I already can't remember what life was like before you?"

"If you're crazy, I'm crazy," Kravitz says. His eyes are closed and his face is turned away, trying to follow the fan on the windowsill, but he can feel Taako's eye roll.

"Well we knew _that_."

Kravitz squeezes his hand a little too tightly.

"No, I get it," Taako tries instead, back in his unprompted honesty voice that Kravitz loves so much. "It's true either way. 'If you're crazy, I'm crazy.' That should be in our vows."

A rush of cooler air promising falling leaves and sweater season flutters in the open window. It’s a blessing in disguise as Taako mumbles something about the sheets.

With his eyes still closed, Kravitz hums and turns to kiss the top of Taako's head. "It will be."

It is, right there between promises to always save each other the last dance and to have each other's back, not even til death do they part.

**Author's Note:**

> *party poppers go off* 100th work!!! here at the crossroads of spooktober and noirvember, i present to you: ghost detective husbands
> 
> the title: aspen trees are largely considered a transformative symbol, especially wrt death. coffin makers used to use an aspen rod to measure bodies and apparently a crown of aspen leaves gave someone the power to travel safely to the underworld. aspen trees have catskin seed pods and, bc they're part of the poplar family, they make the same fluffs as cottonwoods, like snow made of air. uhhh kravitz's camera is a first model leica, merle and davenport live in parnham house (which is supposedly haunted and possibly where arthur conan doyle was inspired to write the hound of the baskervilles and actually has wisteria so triple word score) (although i can't tell where the stairs are on the south side of the house by the drawing room so idk), taako reads skulduggery pleasant, and all the mentioned proper names that aren't pseudonyms for recognizable characters were real! selbit, beraud, crandon, crowley, the lot of em.
> 
> most other research is from either wikipedia or _the awakening_ (2011). anything about ouija is from the episode "board to death" of the black tapes podcast, alchemy facts are from either michael scott's alchemyst series or _as above so below_ (2014), some crowley stuff is what i remember from the twin peaks book, cocktails come from the savoy cocktail book by harry craddock, and most anything about arthur conan doyle is from memory lmao, but if you're interested ask me for recs bc i have quite a few lol. if any of this is egregiously wrong lemme know, but otherwise just like. suspend your disbelief, cuz it's 1928 london and these dudes are legally married
> 
> as always, your comments/kudos/bookmarks make my day!!! and thank you so much to everyone who said they'd be interested in this! y'all are the most lovely and encouraging people (thank you in particular to marywhale (and i can't wait to read your victorian au now that this has let go of my brain stem lmao)) and i appreciate every teaspoon of support you've spoonfed me over the past few months lmao. okay, where is love from oliver just started playing so i have to go now before i start sobbing. bye!
> 
> eta 26/7/18: intro quote from _metropolis_ (which remains my favorite film) replaced with one from _[war of the foxes](http://www.versedaily.org/2015/fruitrotmillipede.shtml)_ because i found out thea von harbou was a nazi and i feel bad having her name on this fic!
> 
> and if you liked this or any of my other fics, maybe consider [buying me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/mildlydiscouraging)?
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the way the world ends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563530) by [stargirls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargirls/pseuds/stargirls)




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